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MANUAL. 


PRICH, 25 CENTS. 


SexiF-SuppokrineG 
MISSIONARY PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT, 
iy 150 Firra AvE., New YORE. 
1891. 


Rev. JAMES MUDGE, D.D. 











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PASTOR'S 
MisSIONARY 
MANU AL. 


BY 


Rev. JAMES MUDGE, D.D. 


MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
Methodist Episcopal Church, 
150 FirtH Ave., NEw YORK. 


1891. 


Press of 


WR, WR. McCabe & Co, 
| 144 Monroe Street, Chicago 





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PREFATORY WORDS. 


If any apology is needed for this little book, let it be found 
in the following facts, which it seems proper to state as ac- 
counting for its production. 

The author, since returning in 1883 from ten years’ service 
as a missionary in connection with the North India Conference, 
has aimed to be, in the few charges which he has served, a 
missionary pastor at home, deeming it a plain duty, since he 
was providentially prevented from going back, to do all in his 
power to promote the cause at this end of the line. He has 
also been permitted to accomplish something in a wider field 
as continuous Secretary and Treasurer of the New England 
Conference Missionary Society since its reorganization in 1886. 
Besides this, during the past four years he has been Lecturer 
on Missions in the Boston University School of Theology, and 
is also Treasurer of the International Missionary Union. 

Being brought in all these relations, as well as some others 
not here specified, to give much time and strength to the study 
of missions, it appeared to him in the light of a duty to throw 
a small portion of the results of this study into a condensed, 
convenient form that might prove of service to his fellow pas- 
tors—especially the younger portion and those who had not 
paid much attention to the theme—by making it easier for 
them to discharge their full obligations to the missionary 
cause. Hence this unpretending pamphlet, which might 
easily have been expanded into a considerable book for 
the library shelves, but which, in its present shape, it is hoped, 

ili 


1V PREFATORY WORDS. 


may be found of sufficient worth to lie on the study table and 
receive frequent consultation when missionary matters need to 
be considered. 

May the Lord bless it to the advancement of that glorious 
time when He whose right it is shall reign in all hearts 


throughout the earth! 
JAMES MUDGE. 


CLINTON, Mass., Sept. 1, 1891. 


CHAPTER. 


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15. 
16. 
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18. 
19. 
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CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 
MISSIONARY PASTORS THE NEED OF THE HOUR......... ie 
DHEeNLONTHELY CONCERT OF PRAVER:...ccevercensecsectaveses II 
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL, MISSIONARY SOCIETY. ..........00. 18 
RID Wi LO PRAISE MONEY ) FORGIVEISGI ONS 385 tcusncndewas aces hess 26 
Owes LOUVEE TeCOMMON. OBJECTIONS. 0... dccccustagatee dens 35 
THE CHIEF GROUNDS OF MISSIONARY OBLIGATION ..... 4O 
OUR MISSIONARY SOCIETY’S EVOLUTION...........:.0sceeees 44 
ee AUS IL LARVAORGANTZA TIONS. .isdetctebadess ox. s¥eueeatbasss 49 
Ue OMELG NAVI LGSLONS Gita herisdsnrsceestecs ts longe¥erdon ve cet 54 
Cie LOM STC LISS) ONS itansea- seu seer dont re ve eso oS ANN pee 64 
THE CONFERENCE MISSIONARY SOCIETY...........-..c0c000 69 
SIMULTANEOUS MISSIONARY MEETINGG...... ee eee Pek Ge 
PMS ePORGVMISSIONARY DERMONS..%.ccces0 faa eeees0mecghs sence 76 
HPOPICS/ FOR MISSIONARY ADDRESSES 2. sce. .lecesccisdenegces'es 80 
NEISSIONAR Sc UELOUGHTS. IN) POBTRYV..dssissyc0cesenesssthen vse: 84 
PAC ICRP MRA NL ESOT ON Sits nts scte reds» ¢s dcudarst anes nord ee wis sicinihs 94 
Pee DEN GRUNT DAIVASSLONG fizecs ch sed tsb gover: tds siskb daoascooe rs 98 
HEART THROBS OF MISSIONARY HEROES ...........:0ce0000s 102 
THE NOBLE SPIRIT OF THE NATIVE CONVERTS........... I1O 
NEGGHTSeAN DT ARRO Werk OINTS tutes cess srees tense vsscpetascpeces iia ye 





THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 





I. Missionary Pastors the Need of the Hour. 


Tus is the closing decade of the nineteenth Christian cen- 
tury, a century rightly called, because of the marvelous 
changes produced by it in every sphere of human activity, 
wtihemwonderot the ages.,) ) But.the interest of.the Church, in 
missionary work, the noblest enterprise of all, and the most fit 
to create enthusiasm, does not for some reason, seem to feel 
the quickening pulses of the hour as much as do most other 
things. It advances, indeed, but the progress is far too slow. 
It moves, but in this period of steam and electricity to move 
on an ox-cart cannot be accounted satisfactory. In fact, 
so far as the contributions go, (and by them we best gauge the 
interest, ) they have for some time not kept pace with the in- 
crease of the numbers and wealth of the churches. Dr. Dor- 
chester computes that the Evangelical Protestant Church mem- 
bers of the United States gave to Home and Foreign Missions in 
1850 one and one-tenth mills to each dollar of their property; in 
1860 this sum was reduced to nine-tenths of a mill; in 1870 to 
eight-tenths, and in 1880 to six and a half tenths of a mill, 
The computation for 1890 would no doubt show a still further 
reduction. In 1850 thirty-five cents per member was given; 
in 1860 forty-eight cents; in 1870, sixty-three cents; in 1880, 
fifty-nine and a half cents; and in 1890 probably about the: 
same as in 1870, or if an increased amount not more than two 
cents for two decades. The Methodist Episcopal Church in 
1872 gave to its Missionary Society forty-five cents for each of 
its lay and ministerial members; in 1888 it gave only forty-six 
cents, although the sixteen years had without doubt much in- 
creased its riches. 

Is there any explanation that can be found why an impulse 
commensurate with the calls and claims of the dying world 
has not been put into this enterprise ? Without attempting 
now an analysis of ultimate causes we affirm unhesitatingly, 
that the responsibility for the present deplorable indifference 
with reference to the evangelization of the heathen rests chief- 
ly upon the pastors of the home churches.. There is no 
diversity of opinion on this point among those who have made 
the matter the subject of most careful: study. They all say 
with Dr. Christlieb, ‘“The great difference of interest in missions 
in different parishes comes chiefly from the different position 

hh 


2 THE PASTOR'S MISSTONARY MANUAL. 


taken by the clergy in regard to it.’’ They all agree with Dr. 
Pierson that ‘‘the stream rises no higher than its source, and 
ordinarily the measure of the pastor’s interest in the world 
field determines the level of his people’s interest and enthusi- 
asm.’’ Dr. Duff, who traveled widely, observed closely, and 
felt deeply on this theme, declared ‘‘The greatest obstacle to the 
success of missions lies in the apathy and indifference of 
ministers.”’ 

It can easily be seen why so large a responsibility is located 
here. ‘The ministers are the natural and appointed leaders. 
They create the sentiment of the congregations, and in the 
long run exert a molding influence on the people. The latter are 
in very many cases willing to be led, but they can do only a 
little without him to whom they rightly look for inspiration 
and direction. He holds the key of the situation. With tact 
and persistence he can bring to bear a constant pressure that 
will in the course of a few years transform opinion. It is per- 
fectly certain that little or no missionary spirit will be de- 
veloped in a church unless the pastor himself is full of it. If 
by his silence or inactivity he declares that the enterprise is of 
small moment the people can hardly be much blamed for fail- 
ing to support it. The pastor who does nothing or next to 
nothing, really opposes. A goodly proportion of’every con- 
gregation will respond generously to appeals for this cause, if 
such appeals are presented with enthusiasm.’ In the vast ma- 
jority of cases it is perfectly just to say that where there is a 
failure in the collection the pastor is the one chiefly at fault. 
He was induced to slur the matter over or take it up ina 
purely perfunctory and apologetic manner, and the result was 
only what might have been expected: a shame to him, a 
blight on the benevolence of his congregation, a grief to his 
Lord, and a defrauding of the ‘‘Greeks and barbarians’’ to 
whom he is as much a debtor as was the apostie Paul. 

It is true that a pastor who throws his soul into this thing 
as he ought will occasionally meet with criticism or even. op- 
position on the part of some of the leading men of his church. 
But is such a fact any reason for silence or for recreancy? 
Should it not rather be deemed an argument for greater 
earnestness? It certainly shows that previous pastors have 
been culpably neglectful to duly train the flock in this direc- 
tion, have suffered them to go on year after year ignorant of 
what should be the first concern of a Christian Church, But 
a true minister, who looks to the favor of his Master rather 
than of man, will say to himself, not let me be quiet about 
this lest I damage my popularity, not let me do as others 
before me have done and leave to some braver successor the 
task I find too hard; no, but, let me do my full duty in the 


THE NEED OF THE HOUR. 3 


fear of God, with as much tact, to be sure, as I can command, 
but not with unmanly cowardice and the shirking of plain ob- 
ligation. 

The minister who fails to cultivate the missionary spirit in 
his charge wrongs the church in general, whose funds he 
cripples and whose disciplinary requirements he _ violates; 
wrongs his own individual church, in ways which we will 
shortly explain; wrongs Christ Jesus, the travail of whose 
soul he frustrates and whose coming he postpones; wrongs 
the world at large, and himself in particular most of all. He 
forfeits his legitimate share in the glorious triumph of the 
gospel and loses the welcome at heaven’s gate which he might 
otherwise receive from great numbers brought there out of 
every nation by his indirect instrumentality, even though he 
could not in person reach them. ‘‘The world is my parish,’’ 
every true minister will say, especially every lineal successor 
of John Wesley; the world is my parish, and no smaller sphere 
can answer the demands of Christ upon me; I cannot excus- 
ably plan for anything less than Messiah's universal enthrone- 
ment. He who does his utmost at home will doubtless find at 
the last day that his prayers and his urgency in raising the 
funds have been among the most powerful factors in produc- 
ing the glad results. 

Great numbers of pastors no doubt honestly think that 
their duty to the church immediately placed in their care will 
not permit them to do much for the cause in general, and 
especially for people in distant lands. ‘They fall into the delu- 
sion so common with many laymen, that whatever money or 
strength goes out of the parish is so much subtracted from 
the sum total that would otherwise be spent in the parish, and 
that if nothing is given to Africa or Asia there will be so much 
the more laid out for America’s uplifting. But all experience 
proves that this is not so at all, and that the missionary cause 
is, as Dr. Durbin used to phrase it, as much ‘‘the life of the 
Church at home as it is the hope of the Church abroad.’’ 
Nothing so ministers to a church’s true growth, gives it such 
edification and strength as the being drawn out of itself and 
acively interested in the welfare of the lost millions. Nothing 
so stirs the heart for home work as seeking to spread the 
gospel amongst those who know it not. Nothing so expands 
the soul and broadens the sympathies, and calls out generosity, 
loosing the purse strings and the heart strings, as the taking 
up of God’s world-wide work for prayer and study and active 
participation. Nothing so promotes the principle and habit of 
Christian stewardship and dispels selfishness as getting men 
filled with the grand thought of conquering the world for 
Christ. This will put that element of the heroic into their life 


4 THE PASTOR’ SSMISSIONARY MANGAL, 


which is needed to rescue it from sordidness even as, thirty 
years ago, the saving of this nation did, lifting men above 
themselves in a way that no smaller purpose could possibly 
have done. Dr. Alden well says, ‘‘ There is no form of human 
need at home which would not be thoroughly supplied simply 
as a supplementary ‘twelve baskets full’ to a well equipped 
resolute endeavor first of all to feed the hungering millions of 
heathen lands.’’ ‘The Church will certainly do better for her 
own people by forgetting them in a measure than by thinking 
of them exclusively. It may seem like bread cast upon the > 
waters, but it will be surely found after many days. ‘There 
will be accruing as the blest result new evidence of God’s 
truth, new convictions of His power, new affection for. His will. 
Faith for larger home conquests will be strengthened by the 
nighty works wrought, the glorious victories won, in the 
lands afar. Selfishness will diminish and zeal for God’s cause 
in all directions dominate. We shall feel the closeness of our 
connection with the myriads of our fellow men. We shall 
learn to look upon life not from the narrow, niggardly stand- 
point of self-interest chiefly, but from the wider, kindlier plat- 
form of a generous recognition of the active brotherhood of 
man. The best days of the Church were the days of her 
greatest activity in extending the word of truth; she has 
flourished in proportion as she has been true to this cause ; 
and so it will always be. It is vain to seek a stable prosperity 
in any other line. 

No nation or individual can really succeed that lives merely 
or mainly to itself. Itis a sure recipe for Church decay, for 
choking up its channels of beneficence and shriveling up piety, 
to act upon the maxim, ‘‘ Charity begins and ends at home,”’ to 
devote all strength and time and interest and funds to local con- 
veniences andadornments, to get little or no information as to the 
needs of the great world at large, and to give little or nothing 
for its help. They who water are themselves watered, they 
who bless others are blessed ; he who shares, at God’s com- 
mand, ‘the little meal in the barrel will find the supply marvel- 
ously continued ; he who stops amid the bitter cold to rub a 
freezing stranger into vigor will thereby save his own life, 
while his heartless companion refusing to tarry passes on to 
destruction. Just as an army which is held within its en- 
trenchments and kept at spading loses heart and is practically 
beaten, so is it with the Church ; if it has no enterprise or as- 
piration for making its influence widely felt, it will spiritually 
decline. The sword itself well wielded is the most efficient 
shield. The war carried into Africa and into Asia does most 
for the protection of Hurope and America. Whenever the 
. Church has lost sight of its expansive character, its world- 


THE NEED OF THE HOUR. 5 


encompassing commission, it has begun to lose ground. 
Whenever it has gone forward aggressively in obedience to the 
command of Christ, His spirit has been with it and all has been 
well. 

The fact is our benevolent resources are practically inex- 
haustible, only waiting to be drawn out, and in no other way 
can this so well be done as by the cultivation of the spirit of 
missions and the urging of the mighty motives which underlie 
this magnificent enterprise. ‘‘The light that shines farthest 
shines brightest nearest home.’’ ‘‘ We need in the West,” 
said a far-seeing Western clergyman at a public meeting, ‘‘a 
Christianity strong enough to convert the world.’’ He felt 
that to contend against the mighty forces there marshalled in 
opposition to religion nothing weak would answer. And it is 
true of our entire nation that only missionary piety, the 
strongest and clearest sort, can do the work required. To 
confine everything within our own boundaries would de- 
feat the very end sought. The streams of beneficence would 
dry up. Any such proposition exhibits lamentable lack of 
perspective, a total misapprehension of the true philosophy of 
giving. It is ashort-sightedness that ought to be constantly 
exposed, and ought by this time to be much better understood 
than it seems to be. The subversion of foreign missions would 
indeed be, as Dr. Anderson says, ‘‘ the destroying of the great 
wheel in the vast machine of many wheels of which our be- 
nevolent system is composed.’’ ‘To export religion is the best 
way to increase the amount available for home consumption. 

The church of Pastor Lewis Harms in Hermansburg, often 
referred to, is an illustrious example of this principle. Though 
composed of poor peasants and farmers, under his energetic 
leadership they organized themselves into a missionary society, 
built a ship, sent out a missionary colony from their own 
number to South Africa, established a training school and a 
missionary magazine, and soon had scores of laborers and thou- 
sands of converts in Zululand. Did it cripple them at home? 
No; the record is that during the seventeen years that Pastor 
Harms was spared to carry on the enterprise his parish enjoyed 
one long revival and ten thousand members were gathered into 
his church fold. 

Dr. Anderson tells us that in 1847 the native churches in 
the Sandwich Islands where the mission had been planted for 
27 years and had met with remarkable success, gave alarming 
signs of apathy and collapse. There was a deficiency of relig- 
ious stimulus. It was found there, as it has been in our own 
country, that the motive power of home interests alone, the 
mere finishing up of the work already so largely done, was not 
of itself sufficiently strong to meet the needs of the case. ‘‘In 


6 THE PASTOR SSUTSSIONARYAVANOCAL, 


short, it was painfully certain that the infant churches on 
those islands could not be raised to the level of enduring and 
effective working churches without a stronger religious influ- 
ence than could be brought to act upon them from within their 
own Christianized islands.’’? It was this discovery that gave 
rise to the missions to Micronesia, an archipelago 2000 miles 
westward, where native Hawaiians supported by their own 
churches have since been operating with the best of effects in 
the islands from which as well as those to which they went. 
It has been repeatedly proved that it is impossible for mission 
churches as well as others to reach their highest and truest 
state without some outside field of labor. To be simply recipi- 
ents fatally narrows and fossilizes. 

Dr. Ellinwood mentions a New York pastor whose congre- 
gation were struggling witha heavy debt, who was wise 
enough to urge them on that very account to enlist in outside 
mission work. He would not allow them, as a weaker, short- 
sighted leader would have done, to count themselves poor and 
dwell upon their burdens till all heart was taken out of them. 
He said, ‘‘We have so much todo among ourselves that we 
cannot afford to withdraw from the help of others in Christ’s 
name. Wecannot do even our own work selfishly. We can 
only succeed on the higher and broader principle of love to 
Christ and His common cause.’’ Would there were more such 
ministers! Then would there be more churches filled with 
power and efficiency and vigorous spiritual life. 

Dr. F. A. Noble of Chicago, at the great London Mission- 
ary Conference in 1888 gave the following item of personal ex- 
perience in proof of the proposition that active interest in mis- 
sion work helps to educate a church in liberality. He said: 
‘‘ About ten years ago the providence of God led me to the 
pastorate of my church in Chicago. The church had hada 
long and severe struggle, but we were between fifty and sixty 
thousand dollars in debt. The men who were in it had given 
and given. They were compelled to meet the current ex- 
penses of the church, and it was as much as they could do to 
meet the semi-annual interest of this vast sum. After years 
of discouragement they had decided that they could not do 
anything for Foreign Missions, nor much, if anything, for 
Home Missions. I had been for days taking an estimate of 
things. I wentinto the pulpit oneSabbath. J announced the 
schedule of benefactions. I said, ‘We will give so much for 
this and so much for that. In two weeks we will take the an- 
nual collection in behalf of Foreign Missions. I tell you what 
I want you todo. I want you to give six hundred dollars.’ 
They looked at each other and they looked at me. The sum 
was so vast that they had not any words of reproach. So I es- 


THE NEED OF THE HOUR. ri 


caped. Next Sunday morning I repeated the announcement, 
and said, ‘Remember, next Sunday you give this six hundred 
dollars.’ JI heard some remarks about the new minister that 
had come. We took our collection. What was it? It was 
not six hundred but eight hundred dollars. When I took my 
chair the next Sunday morning it was the most astonished 
congregation you ever saw. What was the outcome? ‘They 
began to have some faith in themselves, some sort of respect 
for their capacity ; they found their means were not exhausted. 
In six years we had paid every dollar of our indebtedness, and 
raised our contributions up to nearly twelve thousand dollars. 
There is no church in this continent, or any other, which, if 
the minister will put his heart into it, and say, ‘Our sympa- 
thies must be as broad as the sympathies of Jesus Christ, our 
interests must be as wide as the interests of Jesus Christ,’ can- 
not be brought to give of its substance for foreign mission 
work.”’ . 

In view of all these facts, which might be greatly multi- 
plied, can any one doubt that that pastor greatly wrongs his 
church who, from any motive, however well meant, leads or 
permits it to confine its labors and prayers to its own individual 
wants. It is a course sure to diminish its gifts und graces, 
and decrease its energies and endowments. No matter if the 
church be feeble, let it begin at once to do something for those 
far poorer than itself, and it will take on strength. Dr. Samuel 
Miller, formerly professor in the Theological Seminary at 
Princeton, writes: ‘‘If I were asked how a church, however 
small or poor, would be most likely to rise and grow, I would 
say with confidence, let it begin in good earnest to pray and 
exert itself for sending the gospel to the benighted and perish- 
ing. However small its strength, let it rouse that little, such 
as it is, and engage with fervent prayer and with heartfelt love 
for souls, in contributing to the Lord’s treasury, and the very 
effort would tend to eniarge and build it up.’’ Dr. Andrew 
Sonmierville, of the United Presbyterian Church, Scotland, 
records: ‘‘ My official position for so many years as foreign 
secretary, and the visits which during that time I paid to sev- 
eral places, gave me fitting opportunity for observing the state 
of matters, and I often said that I scarcely knew a congrega- 
tion favored with a minister who took an active part in mission 
work, that was not prosperous.’’ 

To be a missionary pastor, then—that is, one carrying on his 
heart the welfare of the wide, wide world, as well as the little 
part of it within the limits of his local parish, is as plain a 
duty as can be conceived. Viewed from any and every aspect 
its obligation is imperative and pressing. 

It remains to ask, what will a missionary pastor do? To 
which the answer is, he will do his utmost to develop a mis- 


8 LHE- FAST OR SALSSIONA RY a Wy GA. 


sionary spiritin his church. And in order to accomplish this 
he will disseminate information, inculcate principles, maintain 
an interesting monthly concert of prayer, organize his Sunday- 
school into a Missionary Society, and devise means for contrib- 
uting his full quota to the missionary treasury. The last three 
points we will take up in the three following chapters. <A few 
words in regard to the first two will be in order here. 

It needs to be well understood that there is no short cut by 
which we can easily reach the goal in this matter of creating 
and maintaining the missionary spirit; that is, the spirit that 
will count it a joy to deny self for the upbuilding of the Re- 
deemer’s kingdom in any part of the earth, the spirit that if 
no convenient channel was offered for the conveyance of its 
contributions toward the world’s conversion would even make 
one for itself, entreating the authorities to accept their gifts, 
like the Corinthians of old (EI. Corsvill: oa) ee bercm sma 
lazy, speedy way by which this business can be done up once 
for all. The people must have patient, careful, skillful, per- 
sistent, elementary instruction in the facts and principles of 
missions. ‘There must be line upon line and precept upon 
precept for many a weary day, involving a great deal of 
work, but it is truly blessed work on which the Lord sheds 
His richest smile. . 

In the accomplishment of this work many methods must be 
used and many qualities will be called into requisition. Of 
course our missionary periodicals—7he Gospel in Al Lands, 
The Little Missionary, and World Wide Misstons—all excellent 
in quality and cheap in price, must be circulated. Subscribers 
for them can almost always be obtained if pains is taken. It 
is sometimes possible to institute a missionary reading club 
whereby books and magazines on this subject, either furnished 
by the pastor or owned in common, will be passed from hand 
to hand. Into the Sunday-school library a few suitable vol- 
umes bearing on missions, of which there are now great num- 
bers, can be occasionally introduced. The public prayers of 
the pastor, both on the Lord’s Day and in’ the regular mid- 
week meeting should rarely be without some allusion or more 
extended supplication for the salvation of all men. In short, 
a multitude of ways may be taken, the less direct being often 
the most effectual, to keep the topic before the minds and im- 
press it upon the hearts of the congregation. A secretary of 
the American Board relates the following incident which has 
a lesson in this line: 


“““Dr. T——,’ said a prominent lady in an influential church to a min- 
ister who had just been called as pastor, ‘I do not believe in foreign 
missions.” ‘The minister was grieved but said nothing. A few weeks 
after, when the church was gathered about the table of the Lord, he took 


VIVE TI OR ETE AHO OR. 9 


occasion to read the Master’s final words to his disciples. ‘The last 
words of our friends,’ said the minister, ‘are always precious. It affects 
us to know what chiefly weighs on their-hearts as they are about to leave 
us, and any message or commission they give us then we would rather 
do anything than fail to heed or to execute. It has always impressed me 
deeply that the thing that chiefly weighed on our Savior’s heart as he 
was taking his departure was the wor/d, the whole world of sinners for 
which he had died, and that the very last request that he made of his fol- 
lowers was that they should go into all the world and preach his gospel 
to every creature.’ The pastor continued his remarks for some min- 
utes in this strain, but without the slightest personal allusion. Shortly 
after the close of the service the same lady approached him and said with 
tearsimeher eves. Dr, 1. , 1 do believe in foreign missions!’ It is iu 
this way, not by chiding or reproof, that the missionary spirit is to be 
developed in the churches. They need to be brought in contact with the 
soul of the gospel, with the richness and ‘fullness of the redemptive 
schemie as disclosed in the whole Word of God, and especially in the 
character and utterances of our blessed Lord hiniself.”’ 


The words of the Rev. I. H. Packard, of the New England 
Conference,in an admirable essay on ‘‘How to Spread Mission- 
ary Information’’ published in 7he Gospel in AU Lands for 
March, 1885, are so much to the point Shat we make a quota- 
tation: ‘‘We must have a fixed, unalterable determination to 
do this one thing as distinct from other things. Atame will- 
ingness is not enough; a strong, well-defined purpose founded 
upon intelligent convictions of the necessities and grandeur of 
the missionary cause, and of our personal responsibility for 
its success is absolutely demanded. There are four strong 
barriers before us, impregnable against everything but a reso- 
lute purpose; these are ignorance, indifference, avarice, and 
narrowness. ‘There is a sort of heroism needed by all Chris- 
tian workers in order to reach hearts and consciences en- 
trenched behind such opposing walls. When Wm. Lloyd Gar- 
rison commenced the publication of the Lzberator he began 
with the memorable words: ‘I am in earnest; I will not 
equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, 
and I will be heard.’ Missionary items are hardly as objec- 
tionable as were the teachings of Garrison, nevertheless there 
is enough laziness, ignorance, indifference, avarice and narrow- 
ness in ourselves and others to encounter, to necessitate some- 
thing of the same dauntless purpose. We must be in earnest; 
we must listen to nc excuses for inaction; we must not 
apologize for our work, nor retreat, and our cause must be 
heard! 

The pastor who takes up his task with this firmness of front 
will certainly prevail, and will have a missionary church. Is 
it too much to ask that every one do so? No, for only thus 
can this world be saved; nay, only thus can the Church herself 
be saved. ‘The condition which confronts us is extension or 
extinction. They who make no effort to arouse the Church to 





10 THE PASTOR'S DUSSIONARSGITAN CAL, 


fulfill her destiny are really in league with the enemies who 
seek her overthrow. Should the Church settle down at ease 
as though her work were done, deliberately turning her back 
upon the unevangelized nations, she would inevitably and im- 
mediately decline. Should she cease to go forth to conquer 
new fields she would begin to lose her hold on the fields 
already won. Not merely the prosperity but the very exist- 
ence of Zion; not her well-being alone, but her being 
itself, is inextricably intertwined with the work of missions. 
For this is the chzef work of the Church, not an outside cause 
or a side issue, but the great primary business for which she 
was instituted and organized. She has, alas, departed in 
practice far from this ideal. She must be brought back to it. 
She must be led to rise.in her might and make the conquest of 
paganism her ruling passion, hurling herself upon the foe ez 
masse, instead of sending out against those solid ranks an in- 
significant skirmish line. ‘This will be done when the minis- 
try, one and all, make the cause their own, take it on their 
hearts and keep it befoge their people. When there is a man 
in the pulpit full of longing to see the dark lands lighted, they 
who fill the pews will in most cases be found ready to take 
their share in this grand crusade of the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries, not for the rescue of an empty tomb but 
for the universal enthronement of an all-conquering Christ. 


IIT. The Monthly Concert of Prayer. 


THE Monthly Concert of Prayer for Missions has been in 
vogue, with varving degrees of interest, for some scores of 
years. Indeed, it was started in England at least a century 
and a half ago, and for the last seventy years has been more 
or less observed in this country. ‘The Congregational and 
Presbyterian churches have been especially faithful to this in- 
stitution, and have reaped their reward in a generally diffused 
‘ acquaintance with missions among their people, and a degree 
of liberality toward them, such as is found in no other of the 
large denominations. 

In Methodist churches a regularly observed monthly mis- 
sionary concert is a rarity. Not but what such meetings have 
full theoretical approval. The Discipline, §] 367, makes it the 
duty of the preacher-in-charge to institute and carry them on. 
And their immense importance to the cause is fully conceded 
by all who give the matter any attention. But it is found in 
practice that there are some difficulties in the way of their 
regular maintenance. They are not apt to be in favor with the 
unthinking and the unspiritual part of the people. Those who, 
while not altogethe1 unspiritual, lack breadth of mind, are quite 
as likely as any others to object to them, on the ground that 
they interfere with revival effort. In the view of this class no 
meeting is quite right, especially none on Sunday night, which 
does not largely consist of stirring exhortations to sinners, and 
is not closed by an invitation to come forward for prayers. 
They over-emphasize this one department of work, and seem 
to forget that a true church of Jesus Christ has other aims and 
purposes than to make a direct impression on its immediate 
surroundings, that it is an integral part of a far larger move- 
ment and must pay strict regard to the distant as well as the 
near. Itis true of every pastor that the world is his parish, 
and monthly meetings for the consideration of its needs should 
be steadily maintained. 

He will find obstacles to doing so not only from without— 
from those who wish to air their easy eloquence on familiar 
themes and send their prayers along in the customary grooves, 
from those who have so much spiritual selfishness that they 
are reluctant to pray for anybody except themselves and their 
immediate relations, from those-who find a coldness in what- 
ever looks toward a larger drain on their pocket books—but 
also from within. That is, to make such meetings really in- 
teresting requires a large amount of personal preparation. 

ai 


12 THE PASTOR SMISSIONARYT MANGAL, 


No off-hand talk born of the moment and given witha glow 
will answer. ‘There has to be a good deal of special reading 
and thinking, somewhat out of the line of his ordinary employ- 
ment. And it is quite possible’ that he has little taste for it, 
besides having, as he considers, almost no time and perhaps 
few resources. There are so many things to do, so many 
objects clamoring for a share of attention, that the over-bur- 
dened and distracted man, feeling that he must shirk some- 
thing, shirks that which has the least attraction for him and 
which will apparently yield the least fruit. Furthermore, he 1s 
unfamiliar with the monthly concert, having never seen it 
tried in the home of his boyhood, so he really does not know 


just how to goto work. Hence these obstacles within, com-— 


bining with the obstacles without, make his missionary prayer- 
meetings a nonentity. 

It is a thousand pities! It is not in the least necessary. 
The thing being right to do there is, of course, a way to do it. 
The pastor must first make up his mind that it shad/ be done, 
because it ought, and that nothing whatever shall be permitted 
regularly and statedly to interfere with it. In special seasons 
of unusual revival, when extra meetings are being held and 
extra helps used, it may not be wise to divert the current of 
thought or omit for a whole evening the appeal to the uncon- 
verted. But if such seasons are long continued, a judicious 
manager can arrange that the missionary cause shall not be 
altogether lost sight of on its customary night; and it may be 
so handled as to help instead of hindering the impression 
made upon the ungodly. A missionary meeting is a meeting 
for and about salvation, as much as any other. Accounts of 
the wonderful triumphs of Divine grace among the lowest and 
most hardened of the human race, instances of suffering and 
sacrifice for the sake of Jesus, narrations of revival seasons in 
the foreign field, would.certainly furnish a fitting basis on 
which to ground an invitation to sinners here in America to 
test the same mercy which has proved efficacious all over the 


world, and a warning not to incur the greater condemnation. 


which must come upon those sinning against so much greater 
light than is granted the heathen. A cause so close to the 
very heart of Jesus and so vital to the welfare of His kingdom 
as that of missions cannot be detrimental to any phase of the 
Church’s true prosperity, 1f its presentation be properly guided. 
Much less can it be necessary to shut out all reference to it for 
many months together, or many years, lest revival labors be 
discouraged or destroyed. It is precisely because the Church 
has so little of the true revival spirit that it cares so little for 
the promulgation of the Gospel message in the regions beyond. 

Let the pastor, then, get so deeply convicted both of the 
importance of this meeting and its feasibility that he shall put 


WONLTALY CONCHRIVOR-PRAYER: 13 


his foot down very firmly in relation to it. He need not storm 
or bluster or scold. ‘That indicates weakness. He need not 
necessarily even make any pre-announcement of his purpose. 
Having coming to a fixed resolution that it can and must be 
done, let him go straight forward in the discharge of his plain 
duty, taking it for granted that no one will wish to interfere 
with him in carrying out that duty, and that it is not a matter 
of question whether he shall do it. Where by previous con- 
sultation additional co-operation can be secured, it is of course 
well to take means for securing it. But itis also well, under 
some circumstances, to remember that many persons will fall 
in with an accomplished fact rather than assume the responsi- 
bility of conflict, when if they had had the opportunity, by 
being consulted with, to dissent beforehand, they would have 
felt bound to be provoked and dissatisfied at having their 
advice disregarded. And they will be especially unlikely 
to make a disturbance, if the experiment to which they would 
have objected is seen to be a success. Such it can become in 
this case, every time, if the pastor so wills. 

What must he do? The specific things will depend very 
largely on his specific surroundings ; as the situation changes. 
his methods will change. But it may be safely said 
that in this, as in almost everything else, there is no substitute 
for hard work, and the meeting will be worth, to himself and 
his people, just about what it costs. He will have to take the 
laboring oar in most cases. Hecan sometimes get consider- 
able help in various ways from his Missionary Committee, but 
in making his program he will generally have to put himself 
in pretty largely at beginning, middle, and end. To do the 
best service he will have to keep the matter on his mind more 
or less all through the month, making notes and clippings. 
from papers, magazines and books as he has opportunity. 
Some of these he can put into the hands of the young people 
to recite or read. In other cases he can ask them to give the 
incident or anecdote in their own words, or to state the point 
referred to and add some brief comment. 

It is not well to have much reading; especially if the ex- 
tracts be long ; no matter how good they are, the attention of 
the majority will soon flag. Brief Scripture readings can profit- 
ably be selected, and dialogues can occasionally be managed. 
Printed missionary exercises are sometimes available that will 
give a large number something to do. Essays on appropriate 
themes may be introduced. An exercise called Sharp Shooting 
may suitably find a place on the program. It 1s arranged in 
this way: brief paragraphs or short incidents to the number of 
a dozen or more are distributed beforehand to such as are sure 
to be present, and then ata given time in the evening they are 
called for one after another in quick succession by number, 


14 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


with perhaps a pointed comment by the leader to drive each 
shot home, as much snap and enthusiasm being put into it as 
possible. Each month there should be something new, not 
only in the way of topic, but in the method of bringing out the 
topic. As many as possible should be brought in to take 
some part, not excluding the children, though it is not to be 
what is commonly known as a children’s concert. The re- 
peating of the Lord’s Prayer together, or at least the first part 
containing the missionary petitions, may well be made one 
item. Also the singing of the doxology, special attention 
being called to the second line. In like manner single stanzas 
of other hymns, such as the second of ‘‘O for a thousand 
tongues,’’ and the one.in Coronation beginning ‘‘ Let every 
kindred, every tribe.’’ Stanzas that carry a very emphatic mis- 
sionary thought, may be interjected at suitable intervals. 

The different mission fields or countries can be taken up in 
succession, and an evening devoted to each, several persons 
being engaged for some time beforehand in looking up inform- 
ation upon them. . The various religions of the world can be 
treated in the same manner. <A most interesting evening can 
be spent on Mohammedanism, forexample, especially if the vast 
topic be sub-divided by assigning to one the life of the founder, 
to another the conquests under his successors, to another the 
chief doctrines, to another the ritualistic practices, to another 
the present condition of Mohammedan countries, etc., etc. The 
same can be done with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism. 
Different churches or denominations treated in their relation 
to missions can also be made profitable topics. The Moravian 
Missions, for instance, are of thrilling interest, and furnish an 
especially stimulating example. Another plan is to make dif- 
ferent individuals responsible, each for some country or field, 
and so have a resume of the month’s progress in the whole 
world. 

The more prominent classes in the Sunday-school can 
sometimes be induced, one after another, to make arrange- 
ments for filling a half hour at the meetings. The details for | 
three or four of the twelve evenings can be left very frequently 
with the best of results to the officers of the W. F. M. S. or 
the W. H. M.S. If there be a.chapter of the Epworth League, 
it can have charge of an evening once in awhile. Some of 
the valuable books on missions that are constantly dropping 
from the press, such as John G. Paton’s Autobiography, E. 
R. Young’s ‘‘ By Canoe and Dog Train,’’ Cyrus Hamlin’s 
‘“Among the Turks,’’ Gilmour’s ‘‘ Among the Mongols,’’ 
Gordon’s ‘‘ Our India Mission,’’ Thoburn’s ‘‘ My Missionary 
Apprenticeship,’’ can be read at home and the choicest inci- 
dents from them related. Sketches of missionary heroes may 
be given ; a series of five-cent tracts about them is published 


WOUNIMEIVCONCERI OF PRAYER: 15 


by the American Tract Society. Our own Missionary Publica- 
tion department at 150 Fifth Avenue, New York, and the 
leaflets of the W. F. M.S. furnish a great variety of miscella- 
neous material. Maps of the mission lands area very great 
help indeed in conveying vivid ideas concerning them. Colton’s 
missionary map of the world is perhaps the best available for 
general purposes at present, but its price is high. Cheaper ones 
can frequently be made, either by the pastor or somebody in 
the congregation, that will answer fully as well, and will, 
indeed, for special fields, be better. A blackboard is often of 
large service. Missionary curiosities, and visits from mission- 
aries, or special letters from them, should, of course, be util- 
ized to the utmost whenever practicable. In short, there is 
almost no end to the varied arrangements that may and must 
be made, if the meeting is to justify its right to be and to 
hold up its head in the forefront of all others, as it certainly 
should. Special care needs to be taken, withal, that it be not 
too long, let the audience be left hungry for more rather than 
sated with too much. And on no account let the collection be 
forgotten. While the interest of the people is kindled and 
their hearts are aglow, give them a chance to put their good 
purposes into immediate execution by putting their hands into 
their pockets and their money into the boxes. The result will 
often be surprising. | | 
Another caution is perhaps still more needed. Let it be 
a concert of prayer, rather than merely of music or recitations. 
Information is good, but not if it crowds out supplication. 
Here is where no little diligence and vigilance will be called 
for. Reports and addresses must not be allowed to monopo- 
lize the entireevening. Nor is it enough tosecure prayers of a 
vague and yeneral nature. Indeed, they are the special bane 
of such meetings. Prayers short, sharp and direct, that ask 
for the specific thing which rests as a burdenon the heart, and 
then stop, are needed always, are rare everywhere. But ina 
missionary prayer meeting they are doubly essential and 
doubly hard to get. Itis here that failure is to be feared more 
than anywhere else. But even here it is not really necessary. 
The desired pointedness, and brevity, and applicability can be 
obtained to a large degree if sufficient labor be put forth. Per- 
haps nothing reveals the utter lack of sympathy with missions, 
and ignorance about them, among the masses of church mem- 
bers so much as the woful dearth of praying power on this 
subject. It is even rarer than dollars in the contribution 
basket, and is more important. Unless pains is taken about it 
an entire missionary prayer meeting may pass and several 
prayers of the usual routine indefiniteness be offered without a 
single petition for missions except from the minister. It some- 
times works well to assign beforehand different countries 


16 THE PASTOR'S MISSTONARY MANGAL. 


to particular persons to be prayed for. After a statement of 
some special need or crisis, or a description of a particular 
person’s work, it is well to ask some one to pray very briefly 
for that particular matter., Let the pastor himself lead in it if 
no one else can, not being afraid to call plain names right out 
in meeting before the Lord, and let the impression be dis- 
tinctly made that these prayers mean something, that the offer- 
ing of them is the chief business on hand, and that other 
matters are introductory and incidental to this. ‘The whole 
meeting should tend to awaken the spirit of supplication both 
at the time and afterwards, and everything should center 
around this. 

If such a missionary meeting as we have tried to describe 
—planned for with care, managed with skill, filled with 
enthusiasm and work—were held monthly in any church for a 
series of years, who does not know that it would not only be 
the best attended meeting of the month, but thaf it would also 
revolutionize the thought of the community in regard to mis- 
sions, and treble the collections. If it be said that it is too 
much to suppose that many pastors will take this amount of 
pains, we reply, who expects this world to be saved without 
effort, and just so far as the same spirit which sends our mis- 
sionaries abroad possesses our pastors at home, as it certainly 
should, so far will this amount of labor not seem too great. 

We occasionally hear the objection raised that all the other 
benevolent societies ought to be treated the same, in the 
amount of time and strength expended, as the Missionary, and 
hence that such a scheme of endeavor as this book contem- 
plates is manifestly impossible. We cannot regard this point 
as well taken. They who make it have not wisely considered 
the matter. Neither the Bible Society, the Church Extension 
Society, the Freedmen’s Aid Society, the Preacher’s Aid 
Society, nor any of the rest, hold the same relation to the Church 
and its purpose in the earth that the Missionary Society holds. 
This stands alone. None of the rest compares with it in mag- 
nitude or importance, in the amount of money required to meet 
its obligations, or in the effect that would be produced by its 
desired success. ‘The urgency of the debt which God’s people 
owe to the unevangelized nations of the earth is far greater 
than that represented by any of the minor organizations. All 
the other benevolences are debtors to missions. ‘They profit 
by its prosperity. It is fighting their battle, as well asits own, 
against the selfishness and covetousness of the human heart. 
Asa rule they all rise and fall together, and there is no occa- 
sion that one should be jealous of another. 

Let, then, this monthly meeting be energetically maintained in 
all our charges. ‘The failure to do so, it cannot be doubted, is 


WMUNViti eG OINGCE AR): OF PRAYER. iy 


one chief cause of the very subordinate rank we hold among 
other denominations in our average per member of missionary 
contributions.* It is in no way creditable tous that so smalla 
percentage of our churches conform to this important provision 
of the Discipline. Its steady observance wonld work wonders. 

Dr. James LL. Philips, in the Msszonary Review for 
September, 1888, relates an incident, one out of many, in proof 
of the educating power of the missionary concert. In raising an 
endowment fund fora Bible School in India, he was sent, rather 
to his surprise, to a little village in Central Ohio.where a small 
audience of about seventy people greeted him, But when he came 
to take the subscriptions, after the lecture, he learned why it had 
been thought well for him to spend an evening in this out-of- 
the-way place. Among those who had listened to him were 
three women, who proved to be sisters, and who between them 
pledged $85 for his school. Inquiring for their history he 
learned this: ‘‘’ Their childhood home was in Western New 
York, where they used to attend a Presbyterian church. Their 
pastor never failed to observe the monthly concert of prayer 
for missions, at which service he regularly brought before his 
people the conditions and claims of the pagan nations, the 
freshest news from the front ranks of Christ’s advancing army 
in all lands, and also the duty and the privilege of helping on 
this grand movement for the world’s evangelization by earnest 
prayers and cheerful offerings. That faithful pastor had 
reached his rest and reward in heaven, and I, a stranger from 
the opposite side of the earth and another denomination, had 
been permitted to reap some of the golden harvest for which, 
through years of patient toil, he had sown the seed.”’ 

Thus will it always be. If the monthly concert be faith- 
fully held some hearts will be moved, some noble givers raised 
up, some young souls fired with a purpose to be God’s mes- 
sengers t*) His neediest children. No work pays better than 
this. 

* While our average per member is still low, in consequence of our 
immense membership so largely composed of the poor and the young, it 
should in justice be remembered that our total contribution for foreign 
missions is now larger than that of any other American Church or Board. 
We gave last year for foreign missions, through all ascertainable channels 
(besides the many special gifts not reported or tabulated) $889,613. The 
Presbyterian Board collected $794,066, the American Board $762,947, and 
the Baptist Missionary Union $440,788. It should also be noted to our 
credit that whereas in 1880 we were only raising $559,371 for our Mission- 


ary Society, we poured into“its treasury last year $1,135,271, or a gain of 
$575,900 inten years. The gain in the last five years has been $304,143. 


% 


IIl. The Sunday School Missionary Society. 


AMONG the first concerns of every missionary pastor will 
be the bringing into line of the children and youth. ‘Their 
help is indispensable. Hence he will cheerfully comply with 
the requirement of the Discipline, 4] 355, which makes it 
his duty ‘‘to see that each Sunday-school is organized into a 
missionary society under such rules and regulations as the 
Sunday School Board may prescribe.’’ 

What constitutes such an organization? It will not, we 
think, be seriously claimed that the manifest intent of the Dis- 
cipline, either in spirit or letter, is complied with by a mere 
appropriation to missions from the funds of the school, 
whether it be one collection a year, or one collection a month, 
or a special proportion of all collections. This is in many 
cases the practice, and it is better than nothing, but it is, after 
all, an evasion and by no means meets the entire need. 

A bona fide organization implies a written constitution, 
giving definite authority and full directions as to powers con- 
ferred; it implies also special officers, whose duties are laid 
down and whose privileges are pointed out. Unless attention 
be paid to both of these points but little effective work will, as 
a rule, be done. If the matter be left to a mere general under- 
standing or tacit agreement without settled rules, very little 
prominence will be accorded to it; very little permanence se- 
cured to it, very little vigor infused into it; there will be 
fluctuation, uncertainty, lack of stability, lack of confidence, 
lack of power. And if there be no carefully chosen officers, 
chosen with a single eye to their peculiar qualifications, the 
constitution, however well in its way, will be likely to remain 
a dead letter; it will not work itself; it only indicates the lines 
along which the best work can be done. Both the constitu- 
tion and the officers are essential. If only one is obtained 
very defective results will appear. The two together will do 
wonders. Of the two, no doubt the right men or man, or the 
right woman, is most important; but if he or she be reinforced 
by a right system, a wise plan of operations, he can do double 
what he otherwise could. 

As to a constitution, the following form, prepared by the 
writer for his own Sunday-school a few years ago, and since 
adopted by the New England Conference and other bodies, 
will probably answer all ordinary requirements: 


CONSTITUTION. 


Art. I. This Society shall be called The Missionary Society of the 
—— Methodist Sunday School, and shall be auxiliary to the Mis- 
sionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

18 


SUNDAY SCHOOL MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 19 


ArT. II. The object of this Society shall be to promote in all prac- 
ticable ways the interests of the missionary cause within the bounds of 
this school. 

ART. III. All the members of this school shall be members of this 
Society. 

ART. IV. The officers of the Society shall be a president, vice-presi- 
dent, secretary, and treasurer, who shall together constitute a board of 
managers, to be elected annually by the Sunday School Board on the —— 
of 





ART. V. A part of the session of the school on the first Sunday of 
every month shall be set apart for missionary exercises and the reception 
of gifts for the cause of missions; and it shall be the duty of the board of 
managers to provide for such exercises, varying the program from month 
to month in such a way as to actively engage as many of the school as 
possible in acquiring and supplying information and inspiration on mis- 
sionary topics. The managers shall also devise and set in vigorous oper- 
ation whatever schemes they can, such as mite-boxes, collection cards, 
occasional missionary concerts or sales, etc., for increasing the mission- 
ary contributions of the school. 

ART. VI. The president shall preside during that part of the school 
time which is devoted to missions; the secretary shall read at each 
monthly meeting a report of the previous meeting; the treasurer shall 
hold the funds raised by the Society and pay them to the Missionary 
Society of the M. EK. Church. The president, secretary, and treasurers 
shall make a semi-annual report to the Society on the first Sundays of 
April and October. 

ART. VII. Vacancies in the offices may be filled at any regular or 
special meeting ofthe Sunday School Board. 

ART. VIII. This constitution shall not be altered except by a vote of 
two-thirds of all the members of the Sunday School Board, at a meeting 
called for that purpose. 

It is of very considerable consequence to have the officers 
of the missionary society distinct from the ordinary officers’ of 
the school; in nine cases out of ten it will be found of very 
great advantage. It will give greater emphasis to the organi- 
zation. ‘The officers, if they have this one work specially com- 
mitted to them, will be driven to magnify their office, being 
put on their metal to accomplish something and to show reason 
for their existence, whereas if they are merely the regular off- 
cers of the school they will feel perhaps that they are doing 
enough, putting out all the time and strength that they can 
spare, even if they do nothing for missions. Besides, as a rule, 
the regular officers have been chosen with no special reference 
to their missionary zeal, and may have very little or none at 
all, in which case they will do very little or nothing at all, in 
spite of any amount of constitutions. Probably, in most cases, 
the pastor should be president of the missionary society. He 
ought to be able to supply in himself just the right man for 
that post, a man full of earnestness, and determined to do as 
much as possible for missions through the Sunday-school. 

A part of the session of the school—either at the be- 
ginning, taking the place of the usual opening exercises, or at 


20 THE PASTOR’ S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


the close, taking the place of the lesson review, together with 
a little more—where there is but one session, or the second 
session where there are two, should be set apart on the first or 
second Sunday of every month for missionary exercises and 
the collection of the money. A brief program should be ar- 
ranged from month to month for this fifteen or twenty minutes. 
This will require some care and skill, but if taken hold of in 
good season and planned for systematically little trouble will 
be found in managing it successfully. A song from the school, 
a recitation from a scholar, an essay from a teacher, or a read- 
ing by a young lady, and a story by the pastor, gives about 
the right variety. 

As to the collection, it 1s not enough just to pass the 
boxes, as on an ordinary Sunday, with no words of exhorta- 
tion or instruction. If the matter is treated in this perfunc- 
tory way, not much will be gathered. A good deal more em- 
phasis should be put upon it, and a good deal more ecla¢ should 
be given it. With a little manipulation the sums obtained 
can be doubled or trebled, without anybody’s being the 
poorer. Let the contribution of each class (when the school 
is not too large) be brought to the desk and received by the 
pastor with a few words of thanksgiving and dedication to 
God. Let the amount also be publicly announced, the classes 
that do creditably being especially commended, and no class 
being allowed to shirk without a word of reminder or gentle 
reproof. In this way an aggregate of from $5 to $10 a month 
can be raised, even where the Ratroole is not large; and from our 
best schools from $30 to $50 a month can be. obtained. For 
it will always be found that some of the teachers and adult 
scholars will become enthusiastic about it and will give their 
dollar or half-dollar every month with great satisfaction, and 
with no diminution from their annual subscription. Neither 
will the regular collections of the school for its current ex- 
penses be diminished, but rather increased. 

It is found to add to the interest. if the classes are called, 
not by their numbers or teachers, but by some special name, 
appropriate to the cause, which each may select for itself. 
The following are a few of the more common: Light Bearers, 
Little Gleaners, Busy Bees, Gospel Heralds, Christian Work- 
ers, Friends of the Heathen, Happy Helpers, Cheerful Givers, 
Lovers of India, Messengers of Peace, Golden Censer, Chap- 
lin McCabe, William Butler, Bishop Thoburn, Bishop Taylor, 
Africa’s Deliverers, Aid for China, Mite Bringers, Joyful 
Gatherers, Drops of Water, Grains of Sand. 


SONI TASCHOOCL ITESSIONARY: SOCIETY. am 


But the Sunday-school can do much more for missions 
than to take its regular monthly class collections. Various 
otherschemes should be devised for increasing the contributions. 
The scholars should be directed and incited not only to give 
money themselves, but to collect it from outsiders. Mite 
boxes, or barrels, or jugs, or eggs are useful to thisend. Let 
them be varied from time to time to keep up the interest, and 
they will catch a great many pennies and nickels and dimes 
that would otherwise be wasted. They should be opened either 
once a quarter or once in six months, and then given out 
again. Collection cards in some one or more of the many 
forms in vogue should also be pressed upon as many as will 
take them. Those which require the collector to get at least 
a cent a month from each of ten acquaintances, is very simple 
in its working and gathers in a large amount of money. ‘The 
‘Willing Worker’’ cards, which call for ten cents for each of 
our principal mission fields, are also excellent. 

Those marvelously cheap papers, World Wide Missions, 
and Zhe Little Missionary, should be widely introduced and 
circulated among the scholars, the latter in the infant depart- 
ment, the former among the youths and adults. It is far 
better to obtain individual subscriptions for them by personal 
solicitation than to make a grant out of the funds of the school; 
for what people pay for themselves they are much more likely 
to prize. The Little Missionary, however, being only six 
cents a year, may sometimes with advantage be given as a 
present or prize to those children who take a mite box to fill. 

There should be, besides the monthly meetings, an annual 
meeting or anniversary, either on the day of the effort in the 
general congregation, or on Easter Sunday, or the final Sunday 
of the Confereyce year, or some other suitable occasion. A 
program of more than ordinary elaborateness, including reports 
from the officers and some attractive speaker from outside, 
should be prepared, and a good opportunity will be afforded 
to bring up any arrears in the sum that the year’s require- 
ments seem to call for. There should, of course, be a steady 
advancing of the standard. 

Easter Sunday and its popular concert, in accordance with 
the excellent suggestion of our Missionary Secretaries and 
General Committee, should, whether made the annual meeting 
or not, be thoroughly utilized to get a rousing collection for 
missions. What more fitting than to associate with the resur- 
rection of our Lord the great commission which is the most 
significant utterance of the forty days. Little or much may be 
made of it as circumstances dictate, and many minor variations 
in the method of the observance may be introduced. Dr. W. 


22 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


N. Brodbeck of Boston writes as follows concerning the custom 
in Tremont Street Church : 

‘The school makes its offering on that day during the reg- 
ular session, but the amount is not then reported. Envelopes 
have been furnished each teacher with the number of his or 
her class on the face, and a blank place for the amount finally 
to be enclosed. These envelopes, with the amount contributed 
by the class during the school hour, are kept by the teachers 
until the evening concert. Any further amount contributed by 
any of the scholars in the evening is added to that already en- 
closed, the envelope is then sealed, and the total amount indi- 
cated in the blank place provided for it. Toward the close of 
the concert exercises the roll of the classes is called by the 
Secretary, and some member of each class, who has been se- 
lected by the teacher or class for that purpose, brings forward 
to the altar the envelope of said class, the amount enclosed is 
announced by the Superintendent, and a record of it kept by 
the Secretary. Then the offering of the congregation is re- 
ceived by young misses appointed for that mission, and the 
total amount received from the school and congregation is an- 
nounced before the final close of the services.’’ 

This same successful minister bears the following testi- 
mony: ‘‘After an experience of nineteen years I unhesitat- 
ingly commend the Sunday School Missionary Society. I be- 
lieve every pastor will find it helpful in his work in every way, 
and through it may be trained a generation of missionary givers 
who shall raise the cry of ‘ A Million for Missions’ to the more 
consistent one of ‘Two or three millions for this blessed 
Callce aig 

The Rev. W. I. Haven of Boston, writing of the program in 
his Sunday School Missionary Society, which meets on the first 
Sunday of each month, using twenty minutes at the beginning 
of the session, says, ‘‘ We have selected music and a paper or 
address on the regular missionary theme of the month as an- 
nounced in Zhe Gospel in All Lands. ‘These papers are well 
prepared, the friends who are to take part being selected some 
months beforehand. The collections have very largely in- 
creased, and the regular Sunday-school collections have been 
benefited rather than otherwise. The exercises are simple, 
short, varied and interesting.’’ 

The Rev. J. W. Higgins, pastor of the South Street Church, 
Lynn, writes enthusiastically of the great change which has 
been brought about there in the missionary interest and collec- 
tions by the introduction ofa Sunday School Missionary Society 


SONIA Y SCHOOL MISSIONARY SSOCIETY. 23 


organized and managed on the plan outlined in this chapter. Be- 
fore this organization, the largest amount ever given by the school 
to missions was $50. ‘The year of the organization, 1888, the 
contributions rose to $74, in 1889 they were $124, in 1890 they 
were $140, and in 1891 they were $173. 

At Whitinsville, Mass., under the stimulus of such an 
organization, which was improved from year to year, the col- 
lections went up steadily from $20 in 1885 to $46 in 1886, and 
$108 in 1887 in the latter case an average of one doilar for 
every member of the school was reached. 

At East Pepperell, where $21 had been raised in the Sunday- 
school for missions in 1887, the new plan introduced by the new 
pastor resulted in $76 for 1888, $102 for 1889, and $137 for 
1890. 

The pastor of the church at Raymond, N. H., under date 
of Nov. 10, 1886, writes, ‘‘In July the Sunday-school was 
organized into a Missionary Society, since which time the re- 
ceipts from this source alone exceed the entire sum raised last 
year in the church and school.”’ 

The Wesley Chapel Sunday-school, Washington, D. C., 
which was organized into a Missionary Society in 1840 and 
has held regular monthly meetings ever since, has this peculiar 
feature: prior to the final collection of each year, the officers 
of the Society go over their books and find out how much they 
need to make up the amount they desire for the annual re- 
port, and apportion this balance among the different classes of 
the school according to their supposed ability. 

The Superintendent of the Sunday-school in Middletown, 
Conn., writes under the date of Feb. 16, 1887: ‘‘ We have tried 
theplan but ashort time, but with great results. Our collections 
are already three times as large as they used to be, and promise 
to be larger. Our scholars and teachers as well take a re- 
newed interest in this great missionary work. They are learn- 
ing something about the cause. They begin to feel themselves 
part of a great national enterprise. Organize the schools !’’ 

So say we. Organize the schools. Not todo itis to make 
any adequate, permanent, solid advance in the money raised 
and the interest taken practically impossible. It is well known 
that those Conferences which roll up the great sums for mis- 
sions do it very largely, and sometimes chiefly, through the 
Sunday-schools. The Philadelphia and Baltimore Conferences 
raised 62% per cent. of their total contributions last year 
through their Sunday-schools ; New Jersey 66 per cent, Wil- 


24 THE PASTOR’ S MISSIONARY, DIANELLA 


mington 60, New York and Newark 46. Taking the whole 
list of the Spring Conferences 45 per cent. of the missionary 
money came from the schools. Any Conference which falls 
below that—and there are many which have not half as good 
a per cent—convicts itself of disloyalty to the Discipline, robs 
the Missionary treasury, and also robs its youth of a mighty 
educational influence whose value cannot be estimated in 
dollars and cents. 

To bring the children month by month face to face with 
the great facts and thrilling incidents and touching narratives 
of the mission fields, thus arousing their sympathies for those 
destitute of the gospel, is worth a very great deal. Nothing does 
our boys and girls more good or lays better foundation for 
future. usefulness than to lead their thoughts out beyond the 
narrow circle of the things they see, and put them in some 
contact with the noble souls that have illuminated missionary 
annals. ‘They will get impressions which never can fade away, 
impressions which will push them out of themselves into 
active work either abroad or at home, impressions which will 
elevate and ennoble their whole character. They will be 
trained to give asnothing else can train them, and habits of 
benevolence will be formed which will make them invaluable 
helpers in every good work all their life long. The day is not 
far distant when vastly increased efforts will be made by the 
Christian Church to evangelize the world, and the youth of 
the present day are the ones who must be so educated in the 
Sunday-schools that they will enthusiastically give or go. A 
most grievous wrong is done to the children when no provision 
is made for their regular instruction in a line of effort so vital 
both to their own spiritual growth and the welfare of the 
world. With proper endeavor they can be wrought into a 
mighty instrumentality for carrying forward this missionary 
enterprise to glorious completion in the Coming century. Any 
negligence at so momentous a point can be called nothing less 
thanacrime. We must have the little ones for missions. Let not 
their energies, unless in the most extremely urgent and des- 
perate circumstances, be turned exclusively or mainly toward 
raising funds for local expenses and church debts. ‘This is to 
give mere finance the precedence over education. It is not the 
amount of money the children can raise that should be made 
the paramount consideration, but their training in habits of 
self-sacrifice, the broadening of their minds, and the getting 
them interested in the world-wide work of the Lord. They 
should be early aroused to think that their own comforts and 
the advantages of the Christian civilization which they enjoy, 


wma no COOL MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 20 


impose an obligation upon them toward those less highly 
favored. ‘Thus will they grow most steadily and surely to be 
large-hearted and strong-souled. 


IV. How to Raise Money for Missions. 


It has been alleged, not unreasonably, we think, that the 
best spiritual barometer for a church is the amcunt of money 
raised for missions. It certainly tests the genuineness of the 
Christian professions made, discloses the amount of unselfish- 
ness’ attained, measures the intelligence, and marks the honor 
paid to Christ. A great deal is said of a church when it is 
declared and proved to be one of the conspicuously missionary 
churches of a Conference. The pastor also who gains a repu-_ 
tation- in this same direction holds a certificate of distinction — 
second to none in the eyes of the discerning. To secure 
eminence in this line there must, however, be not only the 
right spirit of strong desire and full consecration to the work, 
but also a knowledge of the best methods. ‘The purpose of 
this chapter is to present a few suggestions and hints, with the 
hope that they may be of service to the younger pastors of the 
Church and such as have not given much thought to the 
theme. | 

.Prior to all more immediate attacks upon the pocketbook 
in the interests of this or any other special cause, there should 
be a thorough, persistent indoctrination of the people with 
regard to the duty of systematic beneficence. This is an indis- 
pensible preliminary. Methodists have not been trained in 
this, we think, to the extent that some other denominations 
have been. They are also on the average poorer than some 
others, making it harder for them to squeeze out much surplus 
over and above what is necessary for an economical living. 
Their local burdens are usually greater than most others have, 
and the number of outside charities pressed upon their attention 
is larger. Hence nothing but the most faithful, patient teach- 
ing on this subject will prepare and enable them to measure up 
to their obligations. Spasmodic efforts, the result of impas- 
sioned appeals or peculiar exigencies, are very unreliable and 
unsatisfactory. The people must learn to obey the apostolic 
command, to lay by them in store on the first day of the week 
as God hath prospered them, must learn to act simply as 
stewards of God’s property, as those who have been put in 
trust, for a season, of certain moneys which they are to use 
sacredly for the real owner in heaven. Only as this hard lesson 
of Christian pecuniary responsibility is mastered will the treas- 
uries of the benevolent societies be filled and the work of the 
world’s salvation march on with majestic strides. And it will 
be mastered only as the pastors, irrespective of personal 

26 


HOW TO RAISE MONEY FOR MISSIONS. at 


inclination, unmindful of frowns, disregarding dissuasion, on 
every reasonable occasion push it manfully forward. When it 
is mastered, then the annual missionary day, and all other 
occasions for worthy bestowment, will be welcomed, not 
avoided, will be a joy, not a dread. 

Concerning this annual day, some things should be said. 
For, although largesums (from $100 to $1,000) will be obtained 
from a Sunday-school worked in the manner already set forth, 
and no inconsiderable addition to the total will come from the 
twelve collections at the monthly concerts of prayer, yet all 
this in no respect does away with or detracts from the importance 
of the annual effort in the large congregation. Besides the 
general preparation just mentioned there should be a good deal 
of special preparation. 

The time should be selected with care. It isa serious mis- 
take to defer it too long. Byno means should it be left till 
the last month of the conference year, when the pressure ofthe 
local finances is keenly felt, and a deficit in the current 
expenses very likely stares the stewards in the face, making 
them feel poor, if not cross. If this course be taken there is 
also the great danger that a succession of stormy Sundays may 
occur, and very largely reduce the results that otherwise might 
be reached. Neither is it well, as a rule, to take it before the 
meeting of the General Missionary Committee in November, 
because after that date the special exigencies of the new finan- 
cial year can best be understood. It need scarcely be said that 
it should not be brought into competition with the unusual 
family outlays at Thanksgiving and Christmas, nor thrust into 
the heat of summer when congregations are depleted. Jan- 
uary or February would seem to be the best time, at least for 
the conferences that meet in the Spring, but different localities 
will demand different dates. Let the matter be seriously 
studied by each pastor. 

He should also very diligently prepare a special sermon 
well adapted to the occasion, and make it, if possible, his best 
effort for the year. Of course if he can get some one to help 
him who will draw a larger audience or makea stronger appeal, 
that is all the better; but he will rarely be able to do it, and it 
is important in any event that he should be present. After the 
sermon let a subscription be taken, a subscription by all means, 
in no case a mere basket collection; probably it would be better 
to have no basket collection at all, even as asupplement. It 
is very important to have the names of the givers, not neces- 
sarily for publication, but for two reasons. 

People will always give more when the amount is to beset 
in black and white opposite their own signatures than when 
they can slip something, nobody knows how little, into a box. 


28 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY AMAINGAL, 


A sense of shame or proper self-respect, not to say pride, will 
prevent them from being satisfied to donate five or ten cents 
for the salvation of the world, when they ought to give five or 
ten dollars, if they suspect that the ten cent donation will be 
known. For the same reason subscription papers passed down 
the aisle from pew to pew are better than cards, because in the 
former case there is greater publicity to the subscription. A 
still greater degree of publicity is obtained by having the sub- 
scriptions called out and recorded at the desk, or by having 
life memberships of the Missionary Society made through 
special donations. ‘This works in some places, and with some 
men to manage it, but in other places the people would not 
take kindly toit. For the average church the subscription 
paper is probably the best. Good results are sometimes reached 
by getting in advance a few large subscriptions or a few from 
some other cause peculiarly stimulating, and putting them at 
the head of all the papers as a kind of example, before they 
are passed down the line. A good deal depends oftentimes on 
setting the key-note well. If it is seen that some poor widow 
or servant girl or working man so loves the Lord that he or 
she purposes to give $5 to this cause, the foreman in the shop, 
or the mistress of the servant, or the merchant and employer, 
will be ashamed to give less, though he might otherwise have 
quieted his conscience by putting down one dollar. 

The second reason why it is important to have the names 
of the donors is that the pastor or the missionary committee 
may individually solicit those whose names are not on the list. 
Especial note should be taken of the absent (and for this 
reason the pastor needs to be present), that an opportunity 
may be given to each one to subscribe something. Oftentimes 
a pretty large amount may thus be gleaned from those out of 
town temporarily or permanently, and from those detained at 
home by old age or sickness. A personal call also offers a 
good opportunity to discuss the matter in a pleasant way and 
remove objections and prejudices. 

There are various other methods of taking the collection. 
One of the best (very comprehensive though somewhat labori- 
ous and’expensive) is to send out to every church member and 
attendant, young and old, not long before the annual offering, 
a circular letter stating what the money is for, what it has 
done, how much is needed, etc. Some small tracts can go 
along with it. There should also be enclosed one large envel- 
ope, having on it the name of the family, and smaller en- 
velopes with the names of the particular members. ‘The con- 
tributions of each person are to be put into these envelopes and 
the envelopes deposited in the boxes on the missionary day. 
This day is to be made as big a one as possible with advertis- 


HOW TO RAISE MONEY FOR MISSIONS. 29: 


ing and extra attractions so as to reach also that class of 
people who never give anything except under such pressure. 
Then, when it is over, let those whose envelopes have not 
been returned be called upon and a personal solicitation be 
made. 

Another system is to have all the benevolent causes of the 
church printed on a card, and these cards circulated by mail 
or otherwise among all the members near the beginning of the 
year, each member being requested to mark his subscription 
for each of the causes on the card (to be paid monthly or an- 
nually), and then return the card or the duplicate of it to the 
pastor. | 

Still another way is to have a benevolent collection every 
Sunday, either in boxes passed through the congregation or 
placed at the door, and of the total amount thus contributed 
for benevolence a certain proportion previously agreed upon is 
assigned to missions, and so with the other societies. 

A further scheme, which has been found to work well in 
some places, is to secure in the congregation, after a special 
sermon on benevolence, and by special solicitation also, as 
large a number as possible who will pledge a cent a day, or 
more, either to missions exclusively or to all the societies, of 
which the Missionary will have the chief part; then let these 
names be divided, according to location, among a band of vol- 
unteer collectors who will agree to see them all once a month, 
receive the money, and report to the pastor or some general 
treasurer of benevolences. A slight variation on this is to have 
the whole membership divided into four or more classes, by the 
pastor and official board, those in the lowest class to give a 
cent a month, those in the second five cents, those in the third 
ten, those in the fourth fifteen, and so on. 

These three last methods have some features very com- 
mendable, and are perhaps nearest the ideal of true Christian 
principle. But if any of them are used, very special pains 
should be taken to supplement them by those instructive ser- 
mons and pointed appeals which are necessary for the edifica- 
tion and incitement of average human nature as we find it in 
our churches, and in the absence of which the uninformed, the 
penurious, and the emotional will be likely to avoid giving 
anything at all. 
~ Tt remains to be pointed out that the pastor should set a 
good example of generosity and zeal in the matter by making 
a considerable contribution himself. There would seem to be 
no reasons that except or excuse him, under ordinary circum- 
stances, from being one of the largest givers to the Missionary 
- Society. He handles more money and lives in a better style 
than the majority of his congregation. He is far better in- 


30 THE PASTOR S MISSIONARY MANGAL; 


formed as to the necessities of the work and the needs of the 
world, through the papers and books that he reads and the 
gatherings that he attends. He is supposed to be, and ought 
to be, generally is, more thoroughly consecrated to the service 
of God than the lay members. Of the tithe of his income 
which is due to some department of God’s work, he can give 
a much larger proportion to missions than his members, 
because they have to give theirs quite largely for his support 
and other local expenses, to which he does not, as a rule, con- 
tribute much. There is every reason, for his own soul’s sake 
and for the sake of others, why he should make a handsome 
donation. And he should not be deterred by any false modesty 
from Jetting his light, in this particular, so shine before his 
parishioners that they, seeing his good works, may glorify 
God by following in his steps. 

It certainly is not well to depend for missionary money on 
entertainments or fairs and festivals, for while there may be 
nothing wrong in principle about these things when conducted 
unexceptionably, they are at the best avery irregular source of 
income, and any cause that builds much upon them is on an 
uncertain basis. Nor have they the educational value that 
comes from direct straightforward giving, where nothing is 
suffered to come between the giver and the Lord; and the 
mind, undistracted by the bait of worldly pleasure, learns to 
find a keener, purer pleasure in genuine sacrifice for Jesus. 

But the various simple schemes for earning money for mis- 
sions, which have been so much in vogue of late, especially on 
the part of children and youth, are to be unreservedly com- 
mended. The more of missionary hens, and ducks, and 
lambs, and calves, and pigs, and bees, and flowers, and pota- 
toes, and onions, and cherry trees there are the better: If 
children are taught to earn their money for Jesus, in some of 
these quiet ways, instead of having it put into their hands 
without trouble, it will mean a great deal more to them and do 
a great deal more for them. A plan which has been practiced 
in many places with much zest and profit is to give out to all 
who will take them either a cent, or a nickel, or a dime, or a 
quarter, with the pledge that they will do their best to multi- 
ply it by judicious investment joined with industry, and report 
the result at a given time. It is marvelous what reduplica- 
tions have been found possible, what self-denial has been ex- 
ercised, what inventive genius has been called forth. From 
200 cents thus given out in one school more than. $60 was re- 
turned at the end of the year. In another case from some- 
thing overa hundred pennies there came back $126. Nine 
children with five cents a piece, in a Maryland school, brought 
in $12.82. In another place eighty dimes, taken by old and 


HOW TO RAISE MONEY FOR MISSIONS. dl 


young, yielded ¢180. Some of the things made in the course 
of these transactions were as follows: crochet work, pop-corn, 
potato chips, cotton lace, toilet mats, worsted socks, taffy, bu- 
reau scarfs, pincushion covers, scrap-books, lemonade, molasses 
candy, garters, book-marks, tidies, paper flowers, tablecloth, 
lamp-lighters, ice cream, mottoes, pen-wipers, story books, 
aprons, sun-bonnets, match receivers, caramels, iron-holders. 
ginger cakes. 

Special thank offerings and birthday offerings should by all 
means be encouraged. It is also good to have an occasional 
self-denial week (not but what one should always deny self) 
when some ordinarily allowable comfort, that it would not be 
well to deprive one’s self of entirely or continually, is for the 
time put aside, or some meal forgone, that the price may be put 
into the treasury. Missionary tea meetings, at the parsonage or 
elsewhere, if not once a month or a quarter, at least once in a 
while, may be made profitable. Some curiosities may be ex- 
hibited, a few short, pleasant stories read or told, simple re- 
freshments served, and a small contribution from each one (at 
the door, beside the plate, or in a collection basket) gathered 
for the swelling of the funds. Something of a Japanese, 
Chinese, or Hindu tone may be given to these meetings suc- 
cessively, if there be resources sufficient. 

We have said but little, except incidentally, of the im- 
portant use which may be made of the Quarterly Conference 
missionary committee and of missionary collectors. The 
former, in many cases, if carefully selected and rightly trained, 
will be of great aid in upholding the pastor’s hands, and the 
latter, in some shape or other, are almost indispensable, 
especially in large churches. Even a single collector, if full 
of love for the cause, can often accomplish wonders. In 
illustration of this Bishop Harris tells the following story: 

In 1860 Bishop Morris was presiding at an Annual Con- 
ference held in one of the most prosperous portions of the 
Church. In the examination of character he called the name 
of an excellent minister, a good friend of missions, whose 
voice was often heard in earnest appeals for their support. 

; ‘« Brother,’’ said the Bishop, ‘‘ what is the amount of your 
missionary collection ?”’ 

‘Well, now,’’ said he, ‘‘ Bishop, before I tell you how 
much I have, I must tell you how it was collected. At the 
last Conference I was sent to a church that had never done a 
great deal for the missionary cause. ‘They never allowed a 
subscription to be taken for the support of missions; they never 
allowed anything in that line, except an earnest appeal once a 
year for missions, if the preacher would make one, and then to 
pass the plates and receive in ready cash what the people were 


32 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


disposed to give. For the last ten years they have never given 
in their annual collection more than twenty-five dollars, nor 
less than fifteen dollars. When I went there last year their 
church needed repairing and they must rebuild their parsonage, 
and, feeling themselves in rather straitened circumstances, 
they gravely resolved that, for that year at least, the Missionary 
Society must get along without their contribution, and the 
pastor was requested not to present the cause for a collection 
during the year. It seemed almost a case of necessity. I fell 
into the trap, and we agreed together to take no missionary 
collection. ‘The next Sabbath at the close of the service I, as 
was my custom, invited persons to come forward and join the 
church. Among those who presented themselves was a young 
girl who had been away at school, but whose mother was so 
sick that she had sent for her to come home to attend her. She 
handed me her letter, and as she did so asked me if we had 
appointed all our missionary collectors for the year, saying that 
she had been a collector where she had been at school, and was 
in the habit of gathering funds every week for the missionary 
cause; that she loved the work, and would be glad to continue 
init. I stated to her frankly the action of the official board, 
and that we were not going to raise any missionary money this 
year. On hearing this statement her countenance was sad; 
she stepped down from the kneeling board, on which she was 
standing, and returned to her pew. On Monday morning she 
called on me for a collector’s book. I told her that I had none. 
Indeed, there had never been one in that church. Whereupon 
she wrote to her former pastor to send her a missionary col- 
lector’s book. In due course of the mail it came, and on 
receiving it she presented it to me that I should certify in it 
as to her good character, and that she was authorized to receive 
money for the support of our missions.’’ 

This pastor went on to say in that Conference: ‘‘ The 
whole affair soon passed out of my mind and was forgotten. 
We repaired the church and rebuilt the parsonage, and paid 
the bills for both. I received a comfortable support, notwith- 
standing the alleged poverty of my people. Yesterday morn- 
ing when, carpet bag in hand, I was starting for Conference, 
I saw that young girl coming through the gate and up the 
walk which led to my house. Said she, ‘I understand you are 
going: to -‘Conference.”” ° Yes)’ was ‘the *réplys)tiere; ean 
she, ‘is alittle missionary money which I have gathered during 
the year;’ and that faithful girl counted out seventy-szx dollars 
which she had quietly collected in a community where the 
church had never given more than twenty-five dollars, under 
the most stirring appeals of its pastor. Bishop, the amount of 
my missionary collection this year is seventy-six dollars.”’ 


HOW TO RAISE MONEY FOR MTSSIONS. 33 


Bishop Fowler gives also a couple of examples of what can 
be done when the right means are used. Here they are: 

‘‘4 brother in one of the seaboard Conferences was sent to 
a poor chargeinacity. It agreed to pay him $1,200. Many 
doubted their ability to carry such a load. The brother 
adopted the plan of the Discipline. Everybody gavea little 
all the time. Atthe end of the year he had received his $1,200, 
and he took to Conference $1,700 for missions, and no one was 
harmed. : 

“A brother in the New England Conference had a church 
almost swallowed by a great debt. By almost superhuman 
exertions he raised the money and pledges to pay the debt. 
But to do it he was obliged to ‘ give the heathen the go by.’ 
This did not seem right, so he appointed six women to apply 
the plan in the Discipline. Among these women he distributed 
the names of the members. They went about with much fear 
and trembling to glean a little, and give those who wanted to 
give a chance. At the end of the year he:had raised in this 
way more than twice as much as the year before, and nobody 
was hurt.’ 

The secret of successful finance, inthis as in all other mat- 
ters, is an open one. Universal experience proves that it is by 
the vast aggregate of littles that the iargest sums are raised. 
A systematic, persistent carrying out of the plans in the Dis- 
cipline, whereby the basis of contribution is enlarged and the 
number of contributors greatly multiplied, would at once double 
our receipts. It is precisely thus that the German Methodists 
have attained their honorable pre-eminence for missionary giv- 
ing; they thoroughly work all the Disciplinary provisions, and 
hence i in their poverty surpass the richer American Conferences. 
It is by similar solid and painstaking methods that our Wes- 
leyan Methodist brethren of England and Canada have achieved 
those marvelous missionary successes which excite the wonder 
of the Christian world. It is the only possible way. Thereis 
no royal road to this kind of triumph, any more than there is 
to any other. Hard work and plenty of itis the chief explana- 
tion. When William Arthur, missionary secretary of the 
Wesleyan Connection, was asked to give the secret of the suc- 
cess of his denomination in raising missionary money, he 
replied: ‘‘The ministers make the cause their own, and all 
are invited to contribute.’’ There is no doubt but that he 
struck the right key. Whenever the ministers in general— 
not one in ten or one in four—make the cause their own, adopt 
it enthusiastically, throw themselves into it with heart and 
soul, feeling that here is a true test of their faith, their love, 
their devotedness to Jesus Christ, there is no trouble in getting 
the money. Such men will look upon the sum apportioned to 


34 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


their churches only as a minimum figure; a point of departure 
from which to proceed to the highest possibilities of the situa- 
tion. With such men universally in charge, three or four mill- 
ions, instead of one million, could readily be raised each year 
for the Missionary Society. 

This is susceptible of easy demonstration. The Disciplinary 
scheme, which has been outlined and amplified in these pages, 
leaves nothing to turn on the fortunes of a single great effort 
or asingle great giver. It carefully provides for no less than 
twenty-six stated missionary collections inthe course of the year, 
besides the subsidiary money-getting arrangements through 
mite boxes, etc., in the Sunday-school. ‘The twelve monthly 
concert collections, for a small church of one hundred mem- 
bers, will aggregate at least $20. The twelve monthly Sunday- 
school class collections will yield about $60, and the subsidiary 
efforts as muchmore. The pastor himself will give about $20,and 
will easily get from his general congregation, if the last man is 
seen, at least $90, making a total of $250. With alarge church 
of five hundred members worked on this plan, $1,000 could 
readily be realized without the help of particularly rich men, 
and with such help it could be doubled. Now the M. E. 
Church has considerably over 20,000 separate local church 
organizations, and these churches average more than one hun- 
dred members each. (The total of members and ministers was 
last year 2,296,881.) ‘T'wo hundred dollars a year from each 
would make over four million dollars. Who will say, look- 
ing at man’s wail and God’s will, that it would be too much? 
Will the time come when Methodism will give at this rate? 
The answer depends chiefly on the pastors. If they could be 
got to say the word, it might be realized next year. 


V. How To Meet Common Objections. 


THERE can be no doubt but that all, or nearly all, the cur- 
rent objections offered to the missionary enterprise have their 
foundation in the lamentable lukewarmness of the Christian 
Church in point of practical piety. For while lack of informa- 
tion may be truthfully said to lie at the basis of some of the 
prevalent indifference, it is, after all, the low state of spiritual 
life which makes people not only contented with this ignorance 
but opposed to having it dissipated. 

It should also be noted that many of the objections fre- 
quently heard fully answer each other. For example, it is said 
by some that the heathen do not need the gospel, being about 
as good as most Christians anyway ; while others declare, with 
equal fatuity, that they are so degraded as to be beyond the 
reach of the gospel. It is also clear that about all the objec- 
tions urged against missions would have had equal force — that 
is, none at all — as against the work of Christ himself and his 
apostles, especially as against Paul’s career; and most of them 
would be as fatal to Christian work at home as to that abroad. 
All of which goes to show that they have no reasonable foun- 
dation, and are idle excuses for failure in duty, rather than 
sober defenses of an honest position. But such as they arethe 
pastor has to meet them, and hence should be well prepared. 

Probably the most common and the most plausible objec- 
tion to missions strictly so called—that is, to the evangelizing 
of the unevangelized nations, is found in the assertion that we 
have ‘‘heathen enough at home;’’ in other words, that the 
American churches should employ all their energies within the 
bounds of this country. 

To this there are various answers. One is that the home 
work needs the foreign, and for its own sake cannot possibly 
spare it, as we have already shown in the first chapter. An- 
other is that the watchword of Christian work should always 
be, not so much the nearest, as the neediest, and the foreign 
field is by far the more needy. Strictly speaking, there are 
really no ‘‘heathen’’ of any consequence in this enlightened 
land. And for the work here, where comparatively little needs 
to be done, the Protestant churches expend $80,000,000 as 
against $4,000,000 sent abroad. And the total Christian 
workers in the foreign field number 52,500, or one to 24,000 of 
the population, while in the home field there are about 1,260,000 
workers, or one to 50 of the population. So the proportion is 
twenty to one in favor of the home field with respect to the 

3d 


06 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANCAL. 


money, and 480 to one wita respect to the laborers. The closest 
possible estimate of the total benevolences of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church for last year makes it about $25,000,000, 
and of this sum considerably less than one million went out of 
the country; in other words, more than ninety-six per cent. of 
what we contribute religiously is spent for home work. ‘The 
foreign field exhibits far larger returns for the outlay than does 
the home. Mission churches double their membership in 
about ten or twelve years, and churches at home hardly ever 
in less than twenty, more commonly in from forty to sixty. 
The policy of concentration, instead of diffusion, would have 
prevented our ever receiving the gospel, and hence for very 
shame and gratitude we ought to refuse to advocate it. Hav- 
ing-gained so greata gift by others’ generosity, to turn around © 
and say, now we will keep it all to ourselves, is a piece of 
meanness of which we should disdain to be guilty. It cannot 
be the design of the Master who has left us to cultivate his 
great estates that we should put all our energies into making a 
flower garden of a few acres, going over the same soil again 
and again, while nothing whatever is done for the vast pas- 
tures and moorlands of easily reclaimable soil running wildly 
to waste. ‘This, in barest outline, seems to us an unanswer- 
able reply to the somewhat specious but utterly unsound posi- 
tion that we should do little or nothing in other lands till all 
the people of this land are converted. . We are well able to do 
both, and we must.. Let all have a chance. 

In addition to this objection which smacks so strongly of 
national narrowness, there is another one which bears the 
stamp of faint-hearted unbelief. According to it the mission- 
ary enterprise is wholly visionary and impracticable, a mis- 
take, a failure, a chimera, a waste of effort, that should be 
abandoned straightway without further loss. What shall we 
say to this? 

We appeal first of all to the commands and promises of 
Almighty God, who saw the end from the beginning, when He 
bade His followers go forth, and assured them of final victory. 
And we tail not to remember that such revolutions as we are 
seeking to bring about necessarily take time. He would be 
very unreasonable and unacquainted with history who should 
expect large, sudden changes in the religious convictions of 
great peoples. It is only to patient faith that the prize is sure. 
We can point also toa very considerable amount of encour- 
aging results already achieved as an earnest of more to come. 
Among them may be mentioned the following :— 

1. The wonderful change regarding missions in the senti- 
ment of the home churches. A century ago the churches were 
asleep, and it was the rarest thing to find a single soul having 


HOW TO MEET COMMON OBJECTIONS. 37 


any sympathy at all with the project of evangelizing the 
heathen ; whereas now the duty is very generally acknowl- 
edged. 

2. The amazing difference in the opportunities of inter- 
course with foreign lands. ‘The increased facilities of travel 
seem the work of magic. Almost the whole world is now 
easily accessible. Whereas a hundred years ago nearly every 
government was bitterly opposed to missions and nearly every 
country was closely sealed against them; now the number that 
cannot be entered is very small. i‘ 

3. ‘The vast amount of preparatory work already done in 
the foreign fields. Extensive missionary explorations have 
been made, and great stores of knowledge gained, that will 
mightily aid future operations. Languages have been mas- 
tered, strategic points occupied, materials collected, and best 
methods settled upon as the result of careful and costly experi- 
ments that will not have to be made again. 

4. ‘Phe immense number of the Christian Scriptures that 
are now yearly put in circulation. The first eighteen Christian 
centuries produced less than fifty new versions of the Scrip- 
tures. Inthe last ten years the British and Foreign Bible 
Society alone has issued fifty-six new versions, and has been 
engaged in translating the Bible in 166 languages. More 
copies were issued from the press last year than existed in the 
world at the beginning of this century; that is, some six mill- 
ions. Over two hundred and twenty million copies of the Bible 
have been printed in the last ninety years, and not less than 
six hundred millions of the race have had God’s Word given 
to them in their own tongue. 

5. The Missionary Societies and other closely allied or- 
ganizations, such as those for spreading Christian literature. 
It is not sufficiently borne in mind that they are new, alinost 
without exception the product of the past century. A hun- 
dred years ago there were but these seven, the New England 
Company founded in 1649, the Christian Faith Society, 1696, 
the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1698, 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1701, together 
with the Danish Government Mission to Greenland, 1721, and 
the Moravian Missions, 1732—all small and some of them 
practically suspended. Now there are nearly 300 such Socie- 
ties, little and large. 

6. ‘The decided gain in the Christian percentage of the 
to.al population of the world. In John Wesley's day, 125 
years ago (see Wesley’s Sermons, Vol. II, p. 74) only five parts 
in thirty of the world’s population were Christian, while six 
were Mohammedan and 19 heathen. ‘To-day between nine 
and ten parts are Christian, between three and four Mohamme- 


38 THE PASTOR’S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


dan and about 16 heathen. A century ago Christians were 
only 20 per cent. of the whole, or as one to four in the popula- 
tion; now they are about 30 per cent. of the whole, or almost 
one to two, there being probably 480,000,000 Christians out of 
the grand total of 1,500,000,000 now existing on the earth. 

7. ‘The pronounced political ascendency and superior gains 
of Protestantism. While 840 millions, or very nearly 4-7 of 
the people of the world are ruled by nominally Christian gov- 
ernments, 500 millions, or more than 4-7 of the 840, are under 
Protestant control. Practically all the foreign commerce of the 
world is in Christian hands; and of the 21 million tons of 
shipping engaged in it, over 17% millions belong to Protes- 
tant powers. Protestants have increased within the century 
more than three fold, while Roman Catholics have only 
doubled. ~ ; 

8. ‘The amazing growth of the Hnglish-speaking nations. 
Those which are most energetically Christian and progress- 
ively Protestant are advancing in resources the most rapidly. 
They have multiplied five-fold within the century, while the 
population of the world has not more than doubled, and some 
think has only increased fifty per cent. In another century 
they will be at least eight hundred millions, and will dominate 
the globe. 

9. The high character and large aggregate of the converts. 
actually won. ‘There are now not far from three million Pro- 
testant native Christians, one third of whom are communicants. 
Among these some of the most marvelous triumphs of grace 
seen in any land or age have taken place, and glorious revivals, 
presaging great advances, are becoming more and more 
common. 

10. The Student Volunteer Movement among the Colleges. 
of America. It is a matter wholly within the last five years, 
yet so strong an impetus has it obtained that already more than 
six thousand of the most promising and best educated young 
men and women of the land have said solemnly over their own 
signatures, ‘‘ We are willing and desirous, God permitting, to. 
become foreign missionaries.’’ This speaks volumes concern- 
ing the hold which the missionary enterprise has obtained in 
the heart of the studious youth of the country, and concerning 
the numbers available from which to recruit and increase the 
ranks of the eight thousand workers from Christian lands al- 
ready in the foreign field. 

Whoever will thoughtfully consider these ten tokens of en- 
couragement — their number might easily be increased — will 
find little cause to feed or feel despondency with respect to the 
prospects of missions. 


HOW TO MEET COMMON OBJECTIONS. 39 


An objection of a somewhat different character, more petty 
and inexcusable, but still needing to be answered, is even yet 
occasionally heard. We refer to the stale, empty fling that it 
takes two dollars, or ten, to send one to the heathen. Asa 
matter of fact, out of every dollar contributed to the treasury of 
our Society ninety-five cents go to the missions directly, and 
of the other five cents only one cent anda third goes for purely 
office expenses, such as salaries, stationery, and traveling. 
The rest is economically divided among a large number of 
items absolutely essential to the administration, foremost of 
which at present is the interest bill, which we hope will be 
shortly done away. Only the grossest ignorance can longer 
perpetuate this often refuted slander. 

Equally baseless and senseless is the charge that mission- 
aries have too high salaries and live extravagantly. They are 
as low as it is prudent to have them, considering the kind of 
men needed, and the value of their lives and services. They 
are acting as agents of the churches at about one-tenth of the 
salary which men of equal ability receive in those countries as 
agents of worldly corporations. It would be the height of folly 
tosend families at much cost to the other side of the globe, and 
then so cramp them for support that they could give only a 
small part of their time and strength to the special work which 
they were charged to accomplish; or so expose them to needless 
hardships that they would speedily be disabled. The best 
economy is not always what appears so to those unacquainted 
with the circumstances. 

As to the assertion that the Church is not able to contribute 
the sums needed to carry this enterprise through to success, 
we need not hesitate to brand it as sheer selfishness. When 
the pocketbooks of professing Christians get really converted, 
so that they shall devote to the Lord’s work what now they 
lavish on useless luxuries and injurious indulgences, they 
will give twenty millions to missions where now they give one 
million. We have been merely playing at missions so far, in 
a purely puerile way. When we get ready to take up in 
earnest the business of making the world Christian, all that 
we have done hitherto will seem as nothing. We pretend to 
regard the value of souls as superior to anything else, and 
obedience to the command of Christ as paramount to all in 
importance. When these principles begin to rule our practice 
the dawning of a new day will have arrived and Christ will 
very speedily be everywhere enthroned. ° 


VI. The Chief Grounds of Missionary Obligation. 


| In marshaling the motives for this world-wide enterprise, 

the divine should always take precedence of the human ; we 
should place first those reasons derived from God, next those 
derived from our fellow-men, and lastly those derived from 
self. Not the love of man but the love of Jesus is the chief 
constraining motive of the Christian. 

The leading incentives to missionary activity may be 
regarded as five, and stated as follows: ‘The direct command 
of Christ, the indirect command of Christ, the spiritual needs 
of our fellow-men, the temporal needs of our fellow-men, and 
our own profit both temporal and spiritual. 

Concerning the direct command of Christ—conveyed to us 
in the five places, Matt. xxviii. 18-20, Mark xvi. 15, Luke 
xxiv. 47, John xx. 21, Acts 1. 8—it\ may he remarked. tia 
it is unmistakably plain, that it was uttered under such 
peculiarly solemn circumstances as to give it the highest possible 
authority, that it was spoken not only to but through the 
apostles, and hence is in full force to-day, and that it is abso- 
lutely sufficient and final as a present basis for our uttermost, 
speediest action. Hach of these points will bear great enlarge- 
ment, and will be found extremely cogent. And it may be 
safely argued that while obedience to this command does not 
require every one literally in person to go forth, it does 
require the same self-sacrificing, whole-hearted consecration to 
the work from those who are obliged to stay at home. 

The indirect command of Christ is included in his general 
teachings, his example and spirit. And it is important to 
emphasize the missionary bearing of these because thus very 
greatly increased strength is given tothe obligation. It is seen 
not to be dependent on any one precept, however weighty, but 
to be interwoven with the whole life of Jesus, so that we can- 
not walk as he walked, in broadest ministry, without being 
true to the missionary enterprise. His works explain and 
enforce his words. The whole view of man presented in the 
New Testament, according to which all are brothers, makes 
this enterprise a necessity. This view puts the strong under 
bonds to the weak, prescribes the Golden Rule as the 
guide of action, bids us love our neighbors as ourselves, and 
honor and serve all men. ‘he course of conduct thus laid 
down certainly cannot stop short of the impartation of the gos- 
pel. The prophecies, both in the Old Testament and the 
New, which the Spirit of Jesus put on record, together with 

4) 


CHIEF GROUNDS OF MISSIONARY OBLIGATION. 41 


the promises and prayers pertaining to the world-wide spread 
of the Word, also constitute a virtual command. It is not 
needful to enumerate them here. They may be found by the 
score throughout the Scriptures. The example of Christ’s 
chosen apostles, who may well be supposed from their long 
intercourse with him to have fully imbibed his spirit, is like- 
wise a part of the indirect command; for what they did when 
possessed and guided by the Holy Comforter, we may fairly 
infer he intended them to do, and would have done himself 
had he remained on the earth. Their example gives highest 
sanction and clearest pattern to missionary labor, for they 
went into all parts of the then known world teaching and 
preaching the good news of the Kingdom. Once more, the 
fundamental idea of the Christian church as Christ’s body and 
representative, makes it missionary. Its very purpose and con- 
stitution shut it up to this cause. It was undoubtedly organ- 
ized so as to get the advantage which comes from combination 
and division of labor, and thus more effectively to exert its 
influence for the salvation of mankind. Expansion, diffusion, 
are necessary thoughts in connection with it, and all true 
Christians are born into the Kingdom propagandists. ‘The 
Church, if true to its origin; will be dominated by the same 
spirit of unselfish love that filled its Founder’s bosom. | 

The spiritual needs of the heathen are clearly greater than 
_ those of any other class of people in the world. After all due 
allowance is made for the many excellent traits and natural 
virtues possessed and developed among them, their best friends 
have toadmit their manifest moral degradation. Their religious 
deprivations and depravations are evident and abundant. They 
are without the Bible, the Sabbath, the revelation of Divine 
love and the forgiveness of sins, the exaimple of Jesus, the 
disclosure of future happiness, the assurance of reward for 
virtue. Nay, more: their religion itself is, in many cases, one 
of the chief ministers to vice. Lying and licentiousness are 
fearfully prevalent, while lewdness, cruelty, and crime are even 
accounted means of securing the divine favor. They are grossly 
wicked, and they know it, but they know not how to escape 
from the bondage of sin. It cannot be doubted that the vast 
mass of the heathen are perishing; and it 1s equally certain 
that a far larger number of them will be saved if their light is 
greatly increased, just as it is in our own communities. Surely 
this is enough to decide our duty, even apart from the explicit 
and implicit commands to evangelize them. We may lay 
aside speculations as to their destiny until we have done our 
utmost to influence it in the right direction. 

Their temporal needs are so great that all who have become 
really conversant with them are ready to declare that, leaving 


42 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY, MANGAL, 


the future life wholly out of the question, our outlay of men 
and money, time and strength, is repaid ten-fold by the 
unspeakable advantages which missionary labor confers upon 
them in this world. Heathen wretchedness cannot be depicted 
in its full colors by any language that can be used. ‘The 
intense, habitual, helpless poverty, the dense and well-nigh 
universal ignorance, the oppressive social customs, the govern- 
mental exactions, the pitiful condition of woman, the neglect 
of childhood—these are a few bare items in the dark account. 
Their graphic recital would move the hardest heart. Let it be 
remembered, also, that Christianity alone can meet these ter- 
rible needs of pagan lands. Secular influences, working by 
themselves, have been nct only powerless to produce beneficent 
changes, but have been for the most part maleficent in their 


effect. So far from commerce and civilization having any ten- 


dency to uplift the lowly, they have operated for the most 
part in just the contrary direction, because animated by avarice 
and selfishness. Christian missions have been hindered by 
them more than helped. Furthermore, for civilization in 
itself, even when peacefully proffered, the savage has at first 
no relish. It is a new life that he needs, a change of heart 
such as Christianity alone effects. ‘‘A nation cannot have the 
fruits of civilization without the roots,’’ and those roots are in 
a true religion. When all this is considered, it would seem 
that every one possessing even a few drops of the milk of 
human kindness would, on that basis alone, even if there were 
no other, be mightily moved to aid the propagation of the 
gospel. 

Lastly, the reflex personal benefits, so clearly and plenti- 
fully associated with efforts for the world’s conversion, should 
not be ignored. We can here do little more than indicate 
them in the briefest manner, leaving each reader to follow out 
the trains of thought suggested. The close connection of work 
for the heathen with the development, both in the church at 
large and in individual Christians, of those qualities essen- 
tial to the most vigorous spiritual life, has been already 
dwelt upon in a previous chapter. The service which missions 
do for the home church by affording it an unstinted supply of 
the most inspiring examples of Christian heroism and devotion 
both in the persons of the missionaries and the native converts 
will be mentioned and illustrated in two subsequent chapters. 
Besides this, the increased unity among Christians which has 
arisen from missionary labor should by no means be forgotten. 
Believers of all names are certainly brought nearer together in 
proportion as they fix their thought on the last command of 
their common Master and set themselves to obey it. Minor 
variations are lost to view in comparison with the great truths. 


a a 


CHIEF GROUNDS OF MISSIONARY OBLIGATION. 43 


in which they agree. Every one attending a General Mission- 
ary Conference has been deeply impressed with the strong 
union feeling that prevailed, and the disposition to ignore all 
names but that of Jesus. Gratitude, also, both towards God 
and man, will assuredly be promoted by the cultivation of the 
missionary spirit. We shall be deeply grateful to God as we 
are made, by the force of comparison, to clearly realize the 
unexampled mercies and privileges with which we have been 
endowed. And we shall be correspondingly thankful to those 
heroic men who evangelized our pagan forefathers, laying us 
under a debt which we can only pay by passing on in turn the 
torch of light and life to others. Once more, let it be borne in 
mind that missions constitute the best reply to the assaults of 
infidelity. As nothing gives such a handle to unbelievers as 
‘the Church’s failure to comply with her Lord’s command, so. 
nothing so confuses and prostrates them as successful obedience 
to it. Missions are the most unanswerable apologetics. The 
best evidences of Christianity are converted heathen. New 
nations and tribes swinging into line and keeping step to the 
music of redemption’s song, carry consternation of the deepest 
sort to all opponents of our faith. A religion which is chang- 
ing the face of the world and making the wilderness to blossom 
as the rose, 1s giving unanswerable, overwhelming evidence 
not only of its right to be, but of its universal prevalence in 
the not distant future. 

In addition to the spiritual benefits which come to us from 
missions, there are also many temporal benefits. Fora full treat- 
ment of the theme we must refer the reader to two volumes exclu- 
sively occupied with it, namely: ‘‘’These for Those, Our In- 
debtedness to Foreign Missions, or What We Get for What . 
We Give,’’ by Dr. William Warren, Portland, Maine, 1870, 
and ‘‘’The Ely Volume on Missions and Science, or the Con- 
tributions of our Foreign Missions to Science and Human Well- 
being,’’ by Dr. Thomas Lowrie, Boston, 1882. It may suffice 
here to say that the service of missions to civilization and gen- 
eral enlightenment—especially in the three departments 
covered by literature and science, trade and commerce, and 
politics and government—has been such as to call forth the 
most unstinted encomiums from the best judges and highest 
authorities. So that it is. clearly proven that in temporal 
things as well as in spiritual itis a most profitable investment to 
extend tke knowledge of Christ’s kingdom. And when we 
add this final motive to all the other yet weightier ones pre- 
viously presented, it will be seen, we think, and confessed by 
all candid minds, that the proof of duty is perfectly overwhelm- 
ing. The only possible conclusion will be that it is a sin of 
great magnitude on the part of any Christian not to bea friend 
of missions. 


VII. Our Missionary Society’s Evolution. 


THOUGH it may be admitted that the question, how shall 
we arouse a sufficient degree’ of missionary spirit among the 
churches, takes precedence, in difficulty, of all others connected 
with this theme, yet even when that spirit is very largely 
awakened .the field is by no means clear of perplexity. 
Another question of large moment starts up, namely, by what 
organism shall the missionary spirit be transmuted into mis- 
sionary labor. ‘That the reply to this is far from self-evident 
maybe seen from the fact that the most various answers have 
been given. Setting aside private and individual missions, 
which have the loosest ‘of all organizations (if, indeed, they 
can be said to have any), and which manifestly cannot be de- 
pended on for any large results, we may name, without at 
present describing, the political or secular method, very much 
used in other days and not entirely without defenders at 
present, the colonization scheme, which has been at times much 
in vogue and is still regarded with favor by a few, and the 
associational plan so largely practiced in many Protestant 
countries to-day. The last is undoubtedly better than the pre- 
ceding, and is perhaps the only available form for State 
churches and for those Christians who make the complete in- 
dependence of the local church a primary consideration, and 
hence have only the vaguest sort of connection with each other 
over any extended area; but it cannot be regarded as the ideal, 
or asa finality. It is not fitting that the Christian Church 
should transfer to outside® organizations so vital a part of its 
fundamental functions. The regular machinery of the church 
should collect the money, select and send the men, direct their 
conduct. in the foreign field, secure purity of doctrine and the 
proper administration of discipline. Had this been done from 
the beginning we should not now have so much difficulty in 
rooting out from the minds of the people the false notion that 
when asked to do their part in spreading the gospel over the 
world they are being solicited to contribute to some charity or 
benevolence. 

The Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
has reached its present admirable position by what may be ap- 
propriately styled a process of evolution. Like Methodism 
itself it has gradually developed, adapting itself to circum- 
stances and undergoing a variety of changes, passing on from 
point to point as Providence appeared to direct and the wis- 
dom of experience to dictate. It has not probably yet attained 

44 


OUR MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S EVOLUTION. 45 


in all respects perfection’s height, but in most particulars it 
affords an admirable example of close approximation to the 
ideal. 

Previous to 1872 its membership, as in so many other so- 
cieties even at the present day, rested on a purely financial 
basis. The Society up to that time consisted exclusively of 
life members, made svch by the payment of twenty dollars. 
No others belonged. Twenty-five of these members con- 
stituted a quorum for the transaction of business. And at the 
annual meeting, of such members as might choose to come 
together in the city of New York on the third Monday of 
November, there was chosen the full board of managers, in 
whom was vested the entire disposition of the affairs and 
property of the Society. Rather a loose arrangement, it would 
seem. These managers consisted of thirty-two laymen, and, 
after 1856, of no more than thirty-two ministers, although be- 
fore that a// ordained ministers, both traveling and local, who 
were members of the Society were also members of the board. 
This made it, by the necessities of the case, largely a local 
affair, and to some extent, legally at least, independent of all 
Church authority. Yet from the first its promoters earnestly 
endeavored to give it a connectional character, and partly suc- 
ceeded. They-groped their way steadily toward the true 
theory and method, dropping off one erroneous feature after 
another, following the leadings of the Lord, and moving for- 
ward as fast, perhaps, as the Church in general was prepared 
to accompany them, until they came at length to the fully de- 
veloped system. It is instructive and interesting to note the 
advances. 

This Missionary Society was clearly the child of, the New 
York Preachers’ meeting. A committee from that meeting, 
composed of Nathan Bangs, Freeborn Garrettson and Laban 
Clark, drew up its constitution, which was formally adopted 
at a large public gathering held in Forsyth. Street church, 
April 5, 1819, and a full set ox officers was elected. The ensu- 
ing General Conference sanctioned the scheme and recom- 
mended all other Methodist missionary societies, notably the 
one at Philadelphia, which was of older date, to become auxil- 
iary to this at New York. But it was more than twenty years 
before these two societies really united. Nor was it till 1836 
that the Missionary Society became of sufficient importance to 
have a resident corresponding secretary who should give his 
entire time to its service. Dr. Nathan Bangs was appointed. 
He had from the beginning, without salary or compensation 
of any kind, conducted almost all its business, writing every 
annual report but one, and holding in himself the most of its 
life-blood. Dr. Bangs was chosen by the General Conference, 


AG THE, PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


as have been all subsequent corresponding secretaries, although, 
until the abolition of the old ‘‘society’’ in 1873, z¢ went 
through the legal form of re-electing them at its regular an- 
nual meeting. From 1836 to 1844 the corresponding secretary 
had to be a member of the New York Conference, which was 
charged with his supervision. 

In 1844 a very important step was taken in the direction of 
generalizing the management. It was in this year that the 
church was divided into mission districts, and there was 
formed from these the general missionary committee, appointed 
by the bishops, to whom was given a share in the control, con- 
jointly with the board. In 1856 the clerical managers were 
restricted to thirty-two, and in 1872 was instituted the present 
arrairgement, whereby the general missionary committee is 
composed of one representative from each of the mission dis- 
tricts, now fourteen, elected by the General Conference, on 
nomination, by the delegates of the annual conferences within 
each district respectively, also an equal number of persons se- 
lected by the board of managers from its own sixty-four mem- 
bers, together with the secretaries and treasurers of the Society, 
and the whole Board of Bishops. ‘This action more than any 
other gave the final death-blow to the old soczety idea, and 
made the missionary organization, as it ought.to be, an integ- 
ral part of the work of the whole Church. 

Dr. Durbin, secretary from 1850 to 1872, had already seen 
the importance of emphasizing this side of the movement, and 
in the Disciplinary chapter on Missions, recast by him with 
a large amount of new matter in 1852, he had taken pains to 
place at the head of all this highly significant sentence: ‘“The 
support of missions is committed to the churches, congrega- 
tions and societies as such.’’ In other words, the cause was not 
to be regarded as the concern simply of such separate members 
of the church as might choose to bind themselves together in 
local auxiliaries, which at the first, and for a long while, were 
regarded as the principal feeders of the Society, nor of such as 
were able and willing to contribute twenty dollars at one time, 
but every church member throughout the nation or the world 
was by the very fact of his membership pledged to contribute 
and co-operate according to his ability, nor did he need to be 
further enrolled in any distinct way to make this pledge more 
binding. And all the pastors were, as such, special agents of 
the cause, charged with collecting funds for its furtherance 
and in every way advancing its interests. 

The missionary section of the Discipline was again entirely 
recast in 1876, with a number of new paragraphs, of which the 
following stands first: ‘‘For the better prosecution of mission- 
ary work in the United States and foreign countries there shall 


CURES SLONATOY? SOCIETY SVE VOLUTZION. 47 


bea Missionary Society, duly incorporated according to law, 
and having its office in the city of New York; said Society 
being subject to such rules and regulations as the General 
Conference may from time to time prescribe.’? Singular as it 
may seem, this was the first issue of the Discipline, fifty-six 
years after the Society had been endorsed by the General Con- 
ference, containing a direct authorization of its existence. No 
previous Discipline has any mention of the Society, except two 
or three indirect references or allusions in paragraphs treating 
of other topics, which shows emphatically in what a very mis- 
cellaneous manner the entire legislation of the Church on this 
subject has been thrown together, and how fragmentarily it 
has arrived at its present excellent condition. 

‘The most recent emendation of the constitution, ordered by 
the General Conference of 1888, was in the same line with all 
the previous changes, and provides for the still further em- 
phasizing of the connectional, as opposed to the local, charac- 
ter of the institution, by prescribing that the annual meeting 
of the General Committee shall be hereafter no longer confined 
to New York, but shall be held at least three times out of four 
in other cities. 

It would seem now that there is nothing left of the soczety 
or local idea beyond the mere name and the restrictions im- 
posed by the necessity of having a charter from some specific 
State Legislature in order to hold property, as well as the ne- 
cessity of having headquarters where certain matters of business 
can be attended to. This Missionary Society, still so-called 
for convenience sake, is now simply and solely the whole 
Church itself acting in its corporate capacity for the establish- 
ment and support of missions. It is not an outside organiza- 
tion allied to the Church, but distinct from it. Rather is it 
the right arm of the body, holding most vital connection with 
every other part, receiving its full share of the life-blood and 
contributing its full share to the welfare of the whole. ‘The 
Missionary Society is only one of the names of the Church, and 
every member of the latter, from the senior bishop to the 
youngest probationer, is also a member of the former, having 
some part to fill im its maintenance. The General Conference, 
the highest authority, the one body which speaks for the 
entire Church the world around, elects its secretaries and treas- 
urers and presidents, appoints its managers and general com- 
mittee, revises its constitution and sovereignly regulates allits | 
affairs. ‘[he bishops appoint all the missionaries. The Gen- 
eral Committee, meeting annually, selects the mission fieids 
and allots the money, and the Board of Managers, meeting 
monthly, looks after the details, while the secretaries conduct 
the correspondence and set in motion all possible agencies for 


48 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


filling the treasury. So there is at last provided here an 
agency of marvelous completeness for the purpose in hand—a 
system of wheels and pulleys and bands in which strength is 
combined with elasticity, and which moves with a smoothness 
and efficiency leaving little to be desired. 





VUI. The Auxiliary Organizations. 


THREE additional organizations, besides the original and 
venerable Society described in the previous chapter, have, in 
the providence of God, sprung up, subsidiary to it, co-oper- 
ating to secure the same general result, but with a somewhat 
different system of agencies, and standing in some respects on a 
different basis. 7 

The oldest of these is the WoMAN’S FOREIGN MISSIONARY 
SociETy. Its purpose, as defined by Article Second of its 
Constitution, is ‘‘to engage and unite the efforts of Christian 
women in sending female missionaries to women in the foreign 
‘ mission fields of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in sup- 
porting them and native Christian teachers and Bible-readers 
in those fields. The payment of one dollar annually consti- 
tutes membership.”’ 

It was founded March 23d, 1869, in Boston, chiefly through 
the exertions of Mrs. E. W. Parker, Mrs. William Butler, and 
Mrs. W. F. Warren. And from that time its course has been 
right onward. The Missionary authorities of the Church speed- 
ily adopted this promising child, with the understanding that 
it should not raise its funds in such a way as to interfere with 
the contributions of the churches and Sunday-schools for the 
treasury of the parent Society, and should in all particulars 
work in harmony with the Church authorities at home and 
abroad. The succeeding General Conference recognized it 
with approval ‘‘as an efficient agent in the spread of the gos- 
pel.’’ And in 1884 a separate section in the Discipline gave it 
yet larger recognition, and defined more exactly its sphere and 
functions. It is not allowed to obtain money by collections or 
subscriptions during any of our church services, nor in any 
promiscuous public meeting or Sunday-school. | Its appropria- 
tions are submitted for revision to the General Missionary 
Committee of the Church, and its appointees are in all respects 
subject to the bishop and presiding elders where they labor. 
Four thousand five hundred dollars were raised the first year, 
and two missionaries, Miss Isabella Thoburn and Miss Clara 
Swain, M.D., were sent to India, the country whose pressing 
needs had chiefly given rise to the movement. The next year 
$22,000 was raised, and the following year $44,000 ; by 1880 
the amount had risen to $76,000, by 1884 to $143,000, and for 
1890 no less than $220,329 were poured into its treasury. The 
whole sum contributed since the organization is $2,333,450. 

49 


a0 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY, MAN CAL, 


The work of the Society is conducted by ten co-ordinate 
Branches, namely, New England, New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Des Mvuines, Minneapo- 
lis, Topeka, and Pacific, covering almost the entire country, 
the two projected for the South not being at present in opera- 
tion. Its general administration is in the hands of an Execu- 
tive Committee, composed of three delegates from each 
Branch, meeting annually. And whatever affairs of a general 
character need attention in the interim, are submitted to a 
Committee of Reference composed of the Corresponding Secre- 
taries of the several Branches, with Mrs. H. B. Skidmore of 
New York as Chairman. Each branch is also thoroughly or- 
ganized with a multitude of secretaries, one above another 
(there are 341 in all), with a view to secure the most energetic 
supervision and extension of the work. 

It has, in its 5,557 auxiliaries, young ladies societies, and 
children’s bands, 38,956 members, an increase over last year 
of 3,721. About 140 missionaries, 25 of them medical, have 
been sent to foreign fields, and nearly one hundred of them 
are now at work: 34 in India, 23 in Japan, 201n China, 7 in 
Mexico, 44n Korea, 4.40: South sAmeérea, 2s Buleariaeee 
Italy, and 1 in Malaysia. 

The Society publishes an excellent monthly, called 7zhe 
Heathen Woman’s Friend, of which Mrs. W. F. Warren has 
been from the first the editor, and to which there are about 
20,000 subscribers. It issues also a zenana paper in four of 
the languages of India—Hindee, Urdu, Bengali, and Tamil. 
During the past year an illustrated monthly for children has 
been issued which has already over 5,000 subscribers. The 
Friend has been more than self-supporting from the beginning. 

The Society has in the various countries where it works 
about $250,000 worth of property, including many hospitals 
and dispensaries, orphanages for girls, homes for homeless 
women, together with two hundred boarding and day schools 
containing over 8,ooo pupils. There are also a great number 
of native Bible-women and teachers, who, in thousands of ze- 
nanas, are carrying joy and comfort and hope to those who 
have so long awaited the coming of the light. 

It and its thirty-eight sisters in this country alone, with 
700,000 members, gathering $1,250,000 annually (together 
with an equal number in other lands gathering $750,000 more), 
mostly from hidden and remote corners, as the result of con- 
stant self-denials, have greatly quickened the conscience of the 
Church on this subject, undoubtedly aiding instead of hinder- 
ing, as was feared by some, the older general societies. And 
they have also abundantly demonstrated and clearly illustrated 
the full competency of women for the conduct of the largest 


a 


— 


THE AUXILIARY ORGANIZATIONS. 51 


benevolent, educational, and evangelistic enterprises. Long 
may they continue to shed their holy radiance upon the dark 
places of the earth, and ever may they expand untileach sin- 
cursed home has felt the healing influence of their gentle 
touch | 

The second of the great auxiliaries is the WOMAN’S HoME 
MISSIONARY SociETy. According to its constitution, ‘‘ the 
aim of this Society shall be to enlist and organize the efforts of 
Christian women in behalf of the needy and destitute women 
and children of all sections of our country, without distinction 
of race, and to co-operate with the other societies and agencies 
of the Church in educational and missionary work.’’ Here 
also one dollar a year is the membership fee. 

This Society was formally organized at Cincinnati, July 
roth, 1880, and its first missionary was sent that fall to At- 
lanta. Its receipts for the first two years were $7,000, and for 
the first four years $54,000. Last year its general treasurer 
received $113,333, and in addition to this there was paid into 
local treasuries $4,563, and supplies were contributed whose 
estimated value was $53,952. The total amount raised forthe 
ten years has been $387,534 in cash; $13,110 for local work; 
and $235,425 in supplies. 

Its relations to the general Missionary Society and its Dis- 
ciplinary restrictions are the same as in the case of the W. F. 
M.S. Its constitution is somewhat different. It has a presi- 
dent, who was for many years Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, and 
is now Mrs. John Davis; five vice-presidents, a treasurer, a 
recording and a corresponding secretary, the latter being 
Mrs. R. H. Rust. Its General Executive Board consists of 
twenty-one members, residing in or near Cincinnati. Each 
Conference has an organization consisting of all the auxiliary 
societies within its bounds. A large part of the local manage- 
ment is in the hands of sixteen Bureaus, covering different 
sections of the country and different departments of work, 
namely, Kast Southern States, East Central States, West Cen- 
tral States, West Southern States, Texas, New Mexico and 
Arizona (Spanish), New Mexico and Arizona (English), Mor- 
mons, Indians, Alaska, Mission Supplies, Young People’s 
Work, Local Missionary Work, Lectures and Reading Circles, 
Immigrants, and Deaconess Work. 

A great number of Industrial Homes and Schools are 
maintained, mainly for the Freedmen in the South and the 
Mormons 1n Utah, from which beneficent influences of every 
kind go forth. There are 74 Conference organizations, 1,925 
auxiliaries, and 48,200 adult and juvenile members. ‘The 
periodical organ of the Society, known as Home Missions, re- 
cently closed its seventh year of existence with fifteen thous- 


D2 THE. PASTOR'S MISSTONARY MANUAL. 


and subscribers. Mrs. H. C. McCabe is its editor. About 
sixty missionaries and teachers are at work under the direc- 
tion of the Society in various States of the South together with 
Oklohoma, Utah, Alaska, and New Mexico territories. Dur- 
ing the past year 34 candidates were accepted by the Board, 
and 20 received appointments. 

If the estimate of Mrs. Rust, in her last report, is correct, 
that ‘‘seven-eighths of the members of the W. H. M.S. belong 
also to the W. F. M. S. and labor with great zeal for the suc- 
cess of both of these branches of Chutch work,’’ then indeed 
the permanent harmony and co-ordinate efficiency of these two 
sister organizations would seem to be placed beyond doubt. 
May. they each abide in strength and accomplish great things 
for the Master! 

The third auxiliary organization gathering missionary 
contributions in the Methodist Episcopal Church is known as 
“THE TRANSIT AND BUILDING FUND SOCIETY OF BISHOP 
WILLIAM TAYLOR’S SELF-SUPPORTING Missions.’ It was 
incorporated at New York in 1884, under an Act which says: 
“The particular business and objects of said Society are to 
provide the ways and means, and to manage, appropriate and 
apply the same as follows, namely: to procure a suitable outfit 
for missionary preachers and teachers, to pay their passage to 
foreign countries, to pay the traveling expenses of pioneer 
evangelists in those countries, to build or purchase dwelling 
houses, school houses and houses of worship for the use of 
missionaries, also to translate the Sacred Scriptures and suit- 
able religious and literary publications into foreign languages, 
and to print and publish the same. The funds of this Society 
shall not be used to pay salaries of agents at home, nor of 
preachers or teachers in foreign countries.’’ It is added, 
among the regulations, that ‘‘ the Society makes no provision 
for missionaries returning from their field of labor, nor does it 


deem itself justified in paving the outgoing expenses entire . 


where less than five years’ service is rendered.”’ 

Bishop William Taylor is President, Rev. Asbury Lowrey, 
D.D., and Anderson Fowler, Esq., Vice-Presidents, Rev. Alex- 
ander McLean, Corresponding Secretary, and Richard Grant, 
Treasurer. There are a few other officers, but there would 
seem to be no private members. 

This Society, which is perhaps more strictly a Finance 
Committee, comprising eight men and four women, was prac- 
tically inaugurated (though not formally incorporated) in May, 
1878. When William Taylor, not then Bishop, opened his 
Transit Fund and publicly appealed for contributions, he said: 
‘‘T do not wish to receive a dollar that would otherwise go 
into the regular missionary treasury. This self-supporting 


Cee tO AIT ARY ORGANIZATIONS. 53 


work which the Lord of the harvest is opening with such suc- 
cess is outside of all missionary societies, but not antagonistic 
toany.’’ In answer to these calls for help, $42,500 were 
received and acknowledged between May, 1878, and May, 1882, 
with probably $30,000 more in the next two years. For the 
four years following 1884 the receipts were $152,000, for 1889 
they were $45,562, and for 1890, $51,151. So that the grand 
total must be not far from $325,000. 

This committee, up to November, 1889, had general charge 
of the missions established by Bishop Taylor, both in South 
America and Africa. But the Bishop at that time, for reasons 
of his own, took over the entire control of the African missions, 
appointing (later) his son, Rev. Ross Taylor, of Evanston, 
treasurer of such funds, and editor of his organ, 7he African 
News. So that the committee now raise funds simply for 
South America, helping also to some extent the work of Rev. 
C. B. Ward in South India, and a few mission churches in 
charge of Rev. Stephen Merritt in New York City. Its latest 
report gives $120,000 as the cost of the real estate held by the 
Society in South America (subject to a mortgage of $48,600), 
but estimates its present value at $175,000. The value of the 
a in the African mission is put by Bishop Taylor at 

51,100. 


IX. Our Foreign Missions. 


We have no room in these pages for history, properly so- 
called. Even avery meagre summary of the principal facts 
connected with all our foreign work would fill the entire pam- 
phlet. ‘They who would know these things are respectfully 
referred to Dr. Reid’s two-volumed History of our Missions, 
which comes down to 1878, and to the shorter ‘‘ Historical 
Sketches,’’ by the Rev. E. B..Otheman, reaching to the end. 
of 1880. The annual reports are easily available for the years 
that are more recent. 

A sort of bird’s-eye view, however, in briefest compass, of 
our various missions, it has been thought, might be compen- 
diously presented with profit, and would be, indeed, an essen- 
tial feature of such a hand-book as is here attempted. It is 
hoped the following epitome may be found useful. 


LIBERIA. 


Begun by the Rev. Melville B. Cox in 1833. Organized as a Confer- 
ence in 1836, with 340 members and probationers. Members in 1846, 790; 
in 1856, 1,396; in 1866, 1,351; in 1876, 2,488, in 1886, 2,656; in 1891, 3,194. 
In the first twenty years 25 missionaries were sent out by the Board, since 
then only seven; none lately. At least nine died in the field, and many 
more returned with shattered health to die at home. For five consecu- 
tive years, 1853-57, an average of $35,000 a year was given to Liberia. 
For the last 13 years the average has been $4,275. Total appropriations 
from the beginning, $821,079. At present there are 26 members of the 
Conference, 58 local preachers, and 36 churches. Bishop William Tay- 
lor was put in charge in 1884, and has developed a line of stations, 
manned chiefly by white missionaries, along the Cavalla river, in the 
south of the republic, which report 141 adults and 61 children baptized 
last year. The outlook for Liberia is not as yet very bright. 


SOUTH AMERICA. 


Begun by the Rev. Justin Spaulding at Rio de Janeiro, and the Rev. 
John Dempster, at Buenos Ayres, in 1836. Discontinued in 1841. Resumed 
at Buenos Ayres in 1842, and continued there for over twenty years almost 
exclusively as a kind of chaplaincy to the English-speaking mercantile 
community. Spanish house-to-house work was begun in 1864 aud 
Spanish preaching in 1867. In 1883 the mission was strongly re-inforced, 
and a policy of aggressive evangelization on direct lines was heartily 
adopted, since which good progress has been made. Members and pro- 
bationers in 1883, 592; in 1887, 1,270, and in 18go0, 1,865. Superintendent 

o4 


OUR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 55 


from 1842 to 1846, Rev. W. H. Norris; from 1847 to 1854, Dr. Dallas D. 
Lore; from 1854 to 1856, Dr. G. D. Carrow; from 1856 to 1868, Dr. 
William Goodfellow; from 1868 to 1878, Dr. Henry G. Jackson; from 
1878 to 1887, Dr. Thomas B. Wood; from 1887 to the present, Dr. C. W. 
Drees. The mission has in late years become widely extended, especially 
through its vigorous Bible distribution, not only in many parts of Argen- 
tina and Uruguay where the chief force is employed, but also in Para- 
guay, Brazil and Peru. . Dr. T. B. Wood, for some time president of the 
Theological Seminary, has recently removed to Peru to supervise the 
work in that quarter. The average annual appropriation to South 
America for the past three years has been $51,500; the total amount 
spent upon it from the beginning has been $679,022. 


FOOCHOW. 


Begun in 1847 by the Revs. Judson D. Collins and Moses C. White. 
Superintended by Dr. Robert S. Maclay most of the time from 1848 to 
1872, after which Dr. S. LL. Baldwin had charge for a few years. First 
baptism July 14, 1857. First annual meeting, 1862, with 87 members and 
probationers. In 1872 there were 1,805; in 1882, 2,436, and in 18q90, 
4,172. A most useful Mission Press, whose issues have been in late years 
from twelve to fourteen million pages annually, was established in 1862. 
In 1872 was founded a Biblical Institute, and in 1881 an Anglo-Chinese 
college, toward which Mr. Tiong Ahok gave $10,000. In 1877 the mis- 
sion was organized into an Annual Conference by Bishop Wiley with 35 
members in full and on trial, and 46 circuits averaging four stations 
each. There are now 136 native preachers, of whom, 62 are ordained; 
there are 61 members of Conference, eight of them Americans. Seventy- 
two missionaries in all, men and women, including the appointees of the 
W. F. M. S., and including such men as Dr. I. W. Wiley, Dr, Erastus 
Wentworth and Dr. Otis Gibson, were sent to Foochow in the first 
thirty years of the mission; since which time fifteen or twenty others 
have gone. The amount of money annually granted to this mission for 
the past few years has been about $21,000, and the mission itself has 
raised about $2,500. A very fine class of native preachers has been 
raised up, much has been done in the way of self-support, and the bap- 
tism during the past year of 284 adults and 563 children shows that there 
is a good degree of spiritual life in the native churches. 


GERMANY. 


Begun at Bremen in 1849 by Dr. Ludwig 5. Jacoby. Organized into 
a Conference in 1856 with only five preachers in full connection and a 
membership, including probationers, of about five hundred. In 1858 the 
ministers.and helpers were 26 and the members over a thousand. In 
1878 eighty men were stationed and the membership was 11,525. The 
number in the churches now, including those in Switzerland, which was 
set off as a separate Conference in 1886, is 16,342. The only Americans 
who have served in this field have been Drs. W. F. Warren and J. F. Hurst, 


d6 THE PASTOR'S \MISSIONARYVANMAN CAE, 


who each gave five years to what is now the Martin Mission Institute at 
Frankfort, the former in 1862-67, and the latter in 1867-72. The Mission 
Press at Bremen in the first twenty years of its history sold 382,000 books; 
it issues eight well-supported periodicals, and prints from thirty-five to 
forty million pages a year. People and preachers have had to suffer 
much persecution from the clergy of the State churches, but, though op- 
pressed with poverty and burdened with large chapel debts, they are 
making good progress, and the influence of Methodism in the country, as 
the best judges more and more admit, is extremely salutary. 


SWITZERLAND. 


Switzerland, set off as a Conference from Germany in 1886, has before 
that.~uo separate history, nor since has there been anything of very 
special note. The Conference includes two districts in the Swiss Re- 
public, Berne and Zurich, besides some adjacent parts of France in 
which the German language is spoken. There is more freedom of con- 
science and worship than in Germany. We have churches in Basel, 
Berne, Biel, Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, and over twenty other places. In 
1885 there were 5,137 members and probationers; in 1890, 6,113. The 
collections last year amounted to 174,608 francs, or 28 francs per mem- 
ber, certainly a most creditable record, surpassing, it is claimed, all other 


foreign conferences. 
NORWAY. 


Begun in 1853 by the Rev. O. P. Peterson, a Norwegian converted in 
1846 at Pastor Hedstrom’s Bethel Ship, New York Harbor. Organized 
into a Conference in 1876 with 18 churches and 3,500 members and pro- 
bationers. In 1890 there were 5,132, with 77 preachers and helpers, 31 of 
them ordained. Here, as in Germany, oppressive laws hinder the work, 
and there is also a great drain by reason of constant emigration to 
America. But the people make heroic struggles and sacrifices, and are 
more and more conquering a good position. 


SWEDEN. 


Begun by Rev. John T. Larsson, also converted at the Bethel Ship, 
in 1853. For some time united with Norway and Denmark under the 
general’ heading Scandinavia, it was set off in 1868 as a separate mission 
under the superintendence of Rev. Victor Witting, with 1,326 members. 
Vigorous revivals have constantly prevailed in this mission, and there 
have been extraordinary outpourings of the Spirit. In 1870 the member- 
ship was 2,000; in 1875 it was 5,000; in 1880, 7,825; in 1885, 12,746, and 
in 1890, 15,997 This is indeed marvelous growth, showing that primi- 
tive Methodism has taken root in good earnest in this ancient land. 
Probably after a few more years of fostering care the way will be opened 
both here and in Germany for autonomy. It is worthy of note that in 
connection with the Finland District of this Conference a work of con- 
siderable promise has been opened in St. Petersburg. 


ee 


OUR FOREIGN MISSIONS. a7 


DENMARK. 


Preaching was begun at Copenhagen in 1857 by Rev. C. Willerup, a 
Dane, then superintendent of the Norway Mission. In 1866 there was 
dedicated here a handsome and commodious church building, valued at 
$65,000, largely the gift of the late Harold Doliner, Esq., of Brooklyn, a 
liberal Danish merchant. The work in this land is much the same as in 
the other northern countries, though not progressing quite so rapidly, 
and it has not as yet been formed into a conference. There were in 
1890 of members and probationers 2,053, with 16 circuits, and 508 conver- 
sions reported for the year. 

Summing up now the whole of this work in these five missions of cen- 
tral and Northern Europe, mainly among the Lutherans, we find the 
present number of members and probationers 39,524, with 49,010 Sunday 
scholars, and 341 regular preachers, 201 of whom are ordained. Allthisin ~ 
less than 40 years, amid so many difficulties, must be accounted good 
success. The total amount of money spent on these five missions has 
been $2,339,424. 

NORTH INDIA. 

Begun by Dr. William Butler in 1856. Swept away by Sepoy Rebel- 
lion in 1857. Permanent work entered upon in 1858. First convert, 
Zahur-ul-Huqq; baptized July 24, 1859. In 1868 there were 625 memi- 
bers and probationers; in 1878, 2,526; in 1888, 7,944; in 1890, 13,421. 
During the past nine years there have been 11,000 adult baptisms, 3,600 
of them in 1890. Dr. Butler superintended till 1864, when a Confer- 
ence was organized by Bishop Thomson with 17 full members. It hag 
now 79 members and probationers, of whom only 28 are Americans. 
There are eight districts in the Conference with 80 appointments and at 
least 250 centers of work. There are over 300 native preachers, 67 of 
them being ordained; besides some 1,200 more teachers and helpers, 
including the women. About 130 foreign workers, 50 men and 8o 
women, have been sent to Northern India, some 75 of whom are now 
there. The number of day schools is 655; of Sunday-schools, 810. In 
the latter are gathered 30,823 scholars. ‘There is a native Christian com- 
munity of 20,000. Including the school fees and grants more than a 
hundred thousand rupees are annually collected in India for our Mission 
work, or about $40,000. The average amount given by the General Com- 
mittee for the past three years has been $71,900. The Mission Press at 
Lucknow has been and is a mighty power, printing last year 35 million 
pages, while its daughter at Calcutta printed 17 millicns more. The 
Christian College at Lucknow, the Theological School at Bareilly, the 
Orphanage at Shahjehanpore, are each worthy of study. In a paragraph 
only the barest outline can be given of this magnificent mission, by far 
the most flourishing of any we have. If the work is vigorously pushed 
on the lines which have already proved so productive of results, there is 
every reason to believe that the next quarter of a century will witness in 
North India one of the greatest triumphs which the Cross has ever 
achieved in any land. 


58 IHE PASLORS. MISSIONARY MAN CAL. 


SOUTH INDIA. 


Begun by the Rev. William Taylor at Bombay in 1872. Organized 
into a Conference by Bishop Andrews in 1876, with 24 ministerial mem- 
bers and probationers, 40 local preachers, and 1,596 lay members, 1,112 of 
these being in what is now South India territory, or the Bombay and 
Madras Districts. In 1890 it had only 879 members and probationers. 
This work has not prospered as was expected and loudly prophesied by 
its very enthusiastic founder. The money grant for the past three years 
has been $21,000 annually. There are 46 foreign missionaries, men and 
women, and 12 native preachers, besides 150 teachers and other helpers. 

BENGAL. 

Begun by the Rev. William Taylor at Calcutta in 1873. Operated as 
a part of the South India Conference from 1876 to 1886, when it was set 
off by itself. In 1885 it had 966 members and probationers, against 922 
in South India; in 1887 it had 1,338; in 1889, 1,650; in 1890, 2,240, besides 
setting off Malaysia in 1888. It includes the following five districts: 
Calcutta, Burma, Tirhoot, Mussoorie, and Nerbudda Valley or Central 
India. It has the most extensive territory of any Conference in Meth- 
odism. In its Mussoorie District, which is on the extreme north, close 
beside the North India Conference, and inits Central India District, where 
it has found the same classes of people and is carrying on work in the 
same way, there has been great progress of late, and the outlook is excel- 
lent. Calcutta also has proved a good field, having English, Bengali, 
Hindustani, and Oorya churches, besides prosperous boarding schools and 
duseful press. The Conference has 46 missionaries, 56 native preachers 
and 135 other helpers. The annual appropriation from the Missionary 
treasury 1S $18, 300. 

Uniting the three Conferences we have in India as a whole, 16,540 
lay members, 42,423 in the Sunday-schools, 185 missionaries and 380 
native preachers. In 1870 there were only 1,067 lay members and 1,177 
in the Sunday-schools; so there is an increase of over fifteen fold in the 
former, and almost forty fold in the latter. What hath God wrought ! 
Surely he hath not dealt so with any other mission. India receives 
annually from the Missionary Society $111,200, and has received in all 
from the beginning, $2,457,411. 

BULGARIA. 


Begun in 1857 by Dr. Albert L. Long, left without a resident mis-_ 
sionary in 1864, abandoned in 1871, reoccupied in 1873, broken up by war 
in 1877, renewed in 1879. The mission has had an exceedingly checkered 
career; there have been many political complications and other almost 
insuperable difficulties. It has been for the most part but feebly pros- 
ecuted, and the results have been correspondingly small. A more vigorous 
policy has been adopted in the last few years, and the church still has 
hopes. A new superintendent, the Rev. Geo. S. Davis, has just been 
appointed. There are eight American missionaries and fifteen native 
preachers, together with 163 members and probationers. ‘The sum of 
$19,000 is annually expended here. 


OUR FOREIGN MISSIONS. _ 59 


CENTRAL CHINA. 


Begun in 1868 at Kiukiang on the Yangtse, 500 miles from its mouth, 
by the Revs. V. C. Hart and E.S. Todd, sent there from Foochow. Dr. 
Hart was superintendent from 1869 to 1888. The Rev. Leslie Stevens now 
has charge. In 1878 there were 78 members and probationers, in 1890 
there were 536. Thirty-four missionaries are laboring here in the cities of 
Kiukiang, Chinkiang, Nanking and Wuhu. There are 18 native preachers, 
but only two of them are ordained. The Philander Smith Memorial 
Hospital at Nanking, finished in 1886, and the more recently inaugurated 
university at the same place, are doing good service. Medical, educa- 
tional, and evangelistic work are being prosecuted with vigor for some 
300 miles along both banks of this mighty river, andin due time there 
will doubtless be large harvests. An average aunual appropriation of 
$37,953 has been of late years made to this field. 


NOR LEGCHINA, 


Begun in 1869 at Peking by the Revs. L. N. Wheeler and H. H. 
Lowry, who were sent thither from Foochow. Tientsin, the seaport of 
the capital, on the Peiho river, was entered in 1872, and Tsunhua in 1873. 
Dr. Wheeler superintended it until his health failed in 1873, since which 
time it has been in charge of Dr. Lowry. ‘The work is on substantially 
the same basis as in Central China, but larger success in the matter of 
converts has been reached. The first ten years yielded 246 members, and 
the present number, including probationers, is 1,644. This is due in part 
~no doubt to the favorable impression made by Christian beneficence in the 
terrible famine of 1878. As yet only fourteen native preachers, six of them 
ordained, have been raised up. There are 38 missionaries. The Peking 
university, head of the educational system, is gradually getting on its 
feet, and there is also a large medical work. The money granted is 


$43,399 a year. 
WEST CHINA. 


Begun in 1881 by the Rev. L. N. Wheeler at Chungking, 1,400 miles 
up the Yangtse, in the province of Szechuen. The Rev. F. D. Gamewell 
superintended it from 1883 to 1886. The Rev. Spencer Lewis now has 
charge. In 1886 the mission was totally destroyed by a furious riot 
directed against all foreigners, but none of our people were injured. 
Re-established in 1887, it already has 45 lay members, and there is good 
prospect of large usefulness in the near future. 

In all China, combining the four missions, we have a force of IIo 
foreign workers, including 27 ladies supported by the W. F. M. S., and 
35 wives of missionaries. There are 170 native preachers. The total num- 
ber of communicants gathered is 6,405, with adherents numbering some 
5,000 more. In the Sunday-schools there are 4,387. The Missionary 
Society is giving to this field about $110,090 annually, and has expended 
upon it from the beginning, $1,754,534. 


™, 


60 THE PASTORS MISSIONARY MANUAL, 


ITALY. 

Begun by Dr. lL. M. Vernon in 1872. The headquarters were first at 
Bologna, then at Rome, and more recently at Florence. Milan, Turin, 
Venice, Pisa, Naples and some twenty other places have been taken up. 
Dr. Vernon superintended the mission until 1888, when he returned to 
America, and his place was filled by Dr. William Burt, who is in name 
presiding elder, the mission having been constituted a Conference in 1881. 
This field has not been found as fruitful as was expected. It has absorbed 
large sums of money (the average annual appropriation for the last three 
years being $44,740), but has developed very little relish for self-support 
among the people, nor has it produced many satisfactory native preachers. 
A theological school, recently established, in charge of Dr. E. S. Stackpole, 
it ishoped may remedy this latter defect. There has been no advance in 
numbers for ten years, the communicants in 1881 being 1I,019,.and in 1890, 
941, a decrease of 78. There are only 436 in the Sunday-schools. There 
are six missionaries and nineteen ordained native preachers, members of 
the Conference. Italy scarcely seems likely to add much to our mis- 
sionary laurels, or repay the strength and treasure given toit. The total 
expeuse so far has been $578,449. 


MEXICO. ; 

Begun in 1873 by Dr. William Butler, who superintended it till the 
beginning of 1879, when the Rev. C. W. Drees took charge, keeping it 
till the organization of the Conference in 1885. There are now four dis- 
tricts and ror appointments, the past year showing a gain of 28 in the 
number of congregations and 394 in the number of members. ‘There are 
2,437 communicants, and the adherents are put at 6,000. This is cer- 
tainly a good showing for 17 years, considering all the difficulties. The 
Government has been favorable and for the most part able and willing to 
afford entire protection, but there have been some local persecutions, and 
a good deal of mob violence has been stirred up from time to time by the 
priests. One of our native preachers was killed at Apizaco in 1881, and 
others have been seriously injured. We havea grand total of 165 foreign 
and native workers, fully one-fourth of the whole Protestant force in the 
Republic, though there areten other missions. Of this 165, 27-are foreign 
and the rest native, 4o being native preachers, 10 of them ordained. Our 
mission in 1888 had property to the value of $238,850, while the other 
denominations altogether had only $414,260. Since then our property has 
increased to $303,840. Eighteen thousand of this belongs to the Mission 
Press, which has been signally useful, sending out in all some twenty-five 
million pages crowded with gospel truth, and publishing an illustrated 
Christian Advocate semi-mouthly, with a circulation of 3,000. This mis- 
sion has had liberal expenditures from the beginning, and receives now 
over $53,000 a year. 

JAPAN. 

Begun in 1873 by Dr. R. S. Maclay. Organized into a Confereuce 

in 1884. It now has six districts and 55 appointments or centers of work, 


OUR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 61 


the chief being Tokio, Yokohama, Nagoya, Hakodate, Hirosaki, Fuk- 
uoka and Joso. There has been prosperity from the beginning. At the 
second annual meeting there were 17 members reported, at the third 73. 
In 1883 there came a wonderful visitation of the Holy Spirit, and the 
membership, which had hung at about 600 since 1879, leaped at once tu 
943, and gained in the next four years over 1,500. In 1888 it shéwed a 
still more wonderful expansion, increasing from 2,500 to 3,700. It has 
lost a little since, and now stands at 3,533. The mission has paid much 
attention to Sunday-schools, collecting in them 4,022 scholars, or nearly 
as many as in all the China missions together. It raised in 1890, $15,726 
for self-support, chiefly as receipts for tuition. Besides ten high schools, 
it has a well-equipped Anglo-Japanese university at Tokio, where hand- 
some buildings in a twenty-five-acre campus delight the eye of the 
Christian visitor. There are 60 native preachers, 22 of them ordained, 
and 64 foreign workers. About 80in all have been sent to this field. 
It has received $613,000 of money, the appropriations for the last three 
years averaging $60,000 annually. 


KOREA. 


Begun in 1885 by Rev. and Mrs. H. G. Appenzeller, and Dr. and Mrs. 
Scranton, Mr. Appenzeller being superintendent. Medical, educational, 
literary, and evangelistic work is going on, the latter somewhat quietly, 
there not being yet full religious liberty, or any recognized treaty rights 
for missionaries. The first Quarterly Conference was organized in Decem- 
ber, 1889. A press has been established, as well as a hospital, a dispen- 
sary, and two high schools. There are eleven foreign workers, two native 
preachers, 45 communicants and 165 adherents. We have expended so 
far upon Korea about $90,000, and have appropriated $16,000 to it for the 
current year. 

MALAYSIA. 

Begun in 1885 by the appointment of the Rev. W. F. Oldham to. 
Singapore, where in February he and Dr. Théburn inaugurated the new 
movement. It was connected with India until 1888, when it was organ- 
ized as a separate mission with Dr. Oldham as superintendent. His. 
health compelling a return to America last year, Dr. J. C. Floyd is now 
in charge. The chief feature so far has been the wonderfully successful, 
self-supporting Anglo-Chinese school, where over 400 eager Chinese 
youth are being well trained. There is preaching in English, German, 
Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. Work has this year been begun in Borneo; 
other points in Malaysia, such as Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, will 
be soon entered upon if Providence permits. Present force, 15 foreign 
missionaries and teachers, 17 native preachers, teachers, and helpers. 
There are 120 members and probationers, and 195 adherents. The appro- 
priation for the current year is only $7,250. 


’ 


62 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


SUMMAPIES. 


In our ten Asiatic missions, the only ones of any impor- 
tance in which our Missionary Society is at work strictly 
among the heathen, we have 26,627 communicants; we employ 
390 missionaries; we have 616 native preachers, of whom 169 
are ordained; there are in their Sunday-schools over 50,000 
scholars. The Church has expended on these fields about 
$5,900,000, and is giving to them now about $300,000 a year. 
In the last ten years they have more than trebled their mem- 
bership, while the other foreign missions taken together have 
not quite doubled, aud the Church at home has only gained 
33 DG Cent 

Of the whole 20 missions now reviewed, ten are among 
non-Christians in Asia, and ten among nominal Christians in 
Europe, America, and Africa. To the first ten we appropriate 
about $300,000 a year, to the second ten about $260,000. The 
Asiatic missions have 27,627 converts, the Lutheran missions 
39,524; all others 8,580; making a grand total of 74,731. 

The foreign missionaries number 182; assistant missionaries, 
170; W. F. M.S. missionaries, 122; foreign teachers, 72; 
making a total foreign force of 546. There is a native work- 
ing force of paid helpers, teachers and preachers, of 3,771. 
There were 11,189 conversions last year. The students in the 
day schools of various kinds number 33,444; in the Sunday- 
schools, 107,085. The number of churches, chapels, halls and 
other places of worship is 1,459. ‘The volumes printed during 
the year at the Mission Presses were about a million, the pages 
over fifty-seven millions. ‘The amount of money raised on the 
mission fields, as far as reported, was $304,969, of which 
$11,364 was for the Missionary Society. In other words, they 
raise about half as much per member as do the Methodists of 
America, while the most liberal estimate of their wealth could 
not put it beyond one-fourth as much, and probably one-tenth 
would come nearer the truth. 

The amount expended for foreign missions by the M. E. 
Church, through all channels, last year, was $889,613; the 
Presbyterian Board raised $794,066; the American Board, 
$762,947; and the Baptist Board, $440,788. All the Ameri- 
can Protestant churches raised for foreign missions a little over 
$4,000,000, which is just about thirty cents for each communi- 
cant. 


OUR.FOREIGN MISSIONS. 63 


BISHOP TAYLOR’S MISSIONS. 


To complete the epitome of our entire foreign work a few 
words should be added concerning the two Methodist missions 
founded and still controlled by Bishop William ‘Taylor. 

One is in South America, chiefly in Chili, with.three 
stations in northern Brazil. In October, 1877, Bishop Taylor 
sailed for South America and speedily arranged for some 
twenty stations along the west coast, from Panama, on the 
north, to Patagonia on the south,andin Northeast Brazil. Over 
a hundred men and women have been sent to this coast in the 
last twelve years, but some have died and most of the rest have 
returned, leaving about 30 stillin the field. Only six of the 
sixteen stations founded along the Pacific are still held, namely, 
Santiago, Concepcion, Coquimbo, Iquiqui, Valparaiso and 
Aspinwall; one, Serena, has been added, making a total of 
seven. It has been from the beginning almost wholly a school 
work, but there are now a few organized churches with a small 
membership, and the purpose is to develop it still further in 
this direction, as men and funds may be secured. ‘The minis- 
ters and churches in Chilihave been formed into a Presiding 
Elder’s District, in connection with the Cincinnati Confer- 
ence, and those in Brazil have been united in the same way 
with the New England Southern. 

The Africa mission is in three divisions. In 1885 five 
stations were planted in the Portuguese province of Angola. 
These are now accounted self-supporting, through the mercan- 
tile, agricultural, and educational abilities of the men in 
charge, and they report seventy members and probationers. In 
1866 a chain of fourteen stations, now reduced to five, was inaug- 
urated on the Congo, and in 1887 eighteen more stations were 
planted along the Cavalla river in Southern Liberia. These 
latter stations are not yet self-supporting, but are advancing 
toward it, and they report 186 probationers. A mission 
steamer, costing some $25,000, has been put upon the Lower 
Congo, and an attempt is being made to get one for the inter- 
lor rivers. Over 100 persons of all ages have been sent to 
these African missions, of whom more than half have either 
died or returned. Bishop Taylor will next year, have com- 
pleted eight years of heroic service here. May he long be 
spared to lead on this valiant detachment of the army of 
Christ! 


X. Our Domestic Missions. 


Our Missionary Society, unlike most others, combines 
within its sphere of operations both the home and the foreign 
field. This has some advantages, but we believe the best 
interests of both would be subserved, and a much larger 
amount of money raised, if there should be a division. People 
give more heartily and freely when they know that their own 
convictions as to the direction of the funds will be carried out. 
The two causes are so different in their spheres of labor, their 
style of administration, their reports and appeals, that it seems 
incongruous to yoke them so closely, and to compel people, if 
they wish to contribute to the one, to contribute an almost 
equal amount to the other. It seems also very clear that our 
great Church will never do its full duty to the unevangelized 
nations under present arrangements. As Bishop Fowler said 
at Kansas City, ‘‘The plea on which we raise at least nine- 
tenths of our money is the great need of the heathen world. 
If the money is not used for this purpose we shall strangle the 
benevolence of the Church.’’ The money has not been used 
for this purpose in any proportion at all approaching the stress 
laid upon it in popular appeals. The sum total of the Mis- 
sionary Society receipts down to the present time is $24,623,- 
ooo, of which twenty-two millions have been expended directly 
on the missions; and of this, eleven and three-quarter millions 
have been expended at home, and ten and one-quarter millions 
abroad, the foreign appropriations having considerably increased 
of late. Down to 1877, of the total expenditure, which was 
$12,220,982, domestic missions had received $7,337,577, or 
over three-fifths, and foreign missions $4,883,465, or less than 
two-fifths ; and of this two-fifths more than half had been 
devoted to nominally Christian lands, and less than halfto the 
heathen, so that less than one-fifth of our missionary money 
had gone for the chief, if not the only proper, object of missions, 
the Christianization of non-Christian countries. Of the ten 
and a quarter millions which have been, down to the present, 
sent abroad, only five millions have gone to the heathen, which 
is only a little more than one-fifth of what has been contrib- 
uted. From three to five times the space in our annual mis- 
sionary report is given to the presentation of the foreign mis- 
sions ascompared with the domestic, nor can it well be otherwise; 
it fairly represents the comparative interest and importance of 
the two works. But when it comes to the division of the 
money the proportion is very different indeed. According to 

64 


OUR DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 69 


the division last year our Church gave, through all channels, 
twenty-four cents per member to the heathen, and thirty-nine 
cents for both classes of foreign missions; it gave a little less 
than fifty cents a member to the Missionary Society, and sixty- 
six cents to all the four societies of the Church which are 
accounted missionary. It would probably be better every way, 
and certainly more honest, to let each stand on its merits 
before the people, and be pushed by its own special friends. 
Full justice would then be done to both causes, as is hardly 
possible now, and there is little doubt that, soon after the 
readjustment, the full two millions which we ought to be 
giving would loom in sight. 

What has been done with this nearly twelve millions of 
dollars expended for missions on our own soil? The most of 
it has gone to help establish self-supporting English-speaking 
Methodist churches in all the States and Territories of this 
Union. The purpose to do this, and the arrangement of an 
organization whereby the wealthier churches could give sys- 
tematic, judicious aid to the feebler ones, was mainly what led 
to the formation of the Missionary Society. Indeed, for at 
least seven years before it was instituted, Bishop Asbury had 
carried about in his tours a subscription book to obtain funds 
for furnishing laborers in those parts of the frontier settlements 
where there was otherwise no hope of obtaining even the 
necessary food for the itinerant and his horse. For this reason, 
1812 is set down in the Annual Reports as the time of the 
origin of our domestic missions, though the Society did not 
come into being till r819. From this latter date it gave itself 
exclusively for fourteen years to the calls immediately around it. 

Too much cannot be said in praise of the mighty work it 
has done for almost three-quarters of a century, in helping to 
make this country more nearly true to its original name, found 
on the earliest known maps, ‘‘ The Land of the Holy Cross.’’ 
It has been a most potent factor on our rapidly extending fron- 
tiers, and in the sparsely settled districts, north, south, east 
and west, as well as in the slums of the great cities. It has 


_ saved the new communities from relapsing into practical heath- 


enism, and mightily aided in holding this vast continent for 
Christ. 

The aborigines of our own country were the first heathen 
to arouse Methodist sympathy and call forth Methodist funds. 
John Stewart, a negro, began the work among the Wyandottes 
of Ohio in 1815. ‘The mission to the Flathead Indians of Ore- 
gon, begun in 1834, and carried on with vigor for about ten 
years, stirred the Church as nothing previously had done. Its 
immediate results were very disappointing, but it had an 
important influence in saving that portion of the Pacific coast 


66 THE PASTOR’S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


to the United States. Since then there has been but little 
enthusiasm in our Church regarding Indian missions. We have 
at present missions among this people in the territory of eight 
Conferences, from Northern and Central New York on the 
east to Puget Sound on the West, besides the mission among 
the Cherokees and Choctaws of the Indian Territory begun in 
1879, and the mission among the Navajos of Arizona just 
entered upon. They receive in all about $8,000, and number 
about 1,500 members. 

The colored people of the South, that is, the blacks or slaves, 
from the earliest years of the Society were carefully sought out 
by it, and supplied as far as possible with ministrations. Par- 
ticularly since the emancipation of the blacks and the close of 
the war have the necessities of this part of the land been found 
extremely pressing. The negroes flocked to the ‘‘old John 
Wesley church’’ by the hundred thousand, and the Missionary 
Society undertook the stupendous task of grappling with 
these immense masses of intense ignorance and poverty. It 
appropriated to the work in 1866, $280,000; in 1867, $260,000; 
in 1868 about $149,000 ; in 1869, about $150,000, and down to 
the present day it is giving from $110,000 to $130,000 a year to 
the South in the form of grants-in-aid, for the struggling 
churches of that section. 

Not counting the Indian dialects, the Missionary Society is 
preaching the gospel in not less than thirteen foreign lan- 
guages within the territory of the United States. These are 
Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, Hungarian, 
Bohemian, German, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian 
and Welsh. 

Of these, by far the most important is the German. ‘The 
work of Methodism among this people was begun in 1835 by 
Prof. William Nast, a young German scholar of thorough but 
rationalistic education, who had been soundly converted at a 
Methodist altar, and thus reclaimed to the faith of the Reforma- 
tion. He and those who were soon raised up through his 
instrumentality, labored among their countrymen with such 
zeal and success that by 1849 they had gathered 7,000 
church members, and by 1858, 16,000. By 1866 there were 
24,000, by 1871, 30,000, and by 1885, fifty years from the 
start, 56,000, with goo preachers, and 800 churches valued at 
$2,524,000. ‘These, it must be remembered, are simply those 
who still cling for a time to their native tongue, and so can 
better be reached through this medium. Other thousands, 
especially of the second generation in this country, as they 
acquire the English, transfer themselves to English-speaking 
or American congregations; and so the German churches, 
depleted in this way, have to keep themselves full by constant 


OUR DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 67 


aggression upon the fresh arrivals. In 1864 the German Meth- 
odists were organized into three Annual Conferences. They 
now have eight complete Conferences, besides several missions 
outside such boundaries. And the eight Conferences contributed 
last year to the Missionary treasury $35 902, or nearly as much 
as was given them from the treasury. And one of them, the Kast 
German, led the entire Church in fvo rva/a giving, bringing in 
$1.64 a member. ‘The Germans have a very large publishing 
house at Cincinnati, issuing three periodicals, and an immense 
number of books and tracts. They have also five literary 
institutions and two orphan asylums, in short, everything 
necessary for the accomplishment of a most blessed and ever- 
widening work among the millions who have sought our 
shores from the lands beyond the Rhine. 

Next in importance tothe German, and very similar, though 
of smaller extent, is the Scandinavian work; that is, the 
endeavor to spread Methodism among the Swedes, Norwegians 
and Danes, who have taken to coming in large numbers to the 
United States. It was in 1845 that the Rev. O. G. Hedstrom, 
so honorably and widely known in connection with this work, 
was appointed to begin the Swedish Bethel Mission at the port 
of New York. The report for 1861 was able to say that the 
revival begun in that Bethel ship in 1845 ‘‘ continues to this 
day, a revival productive of the best type of Methodism in 
every one of its essential features.’’ It was these conversions, 
acting upon the friends and acquaintances of the converts in 
Northern Europe that led to the establishment of our missions 
there, just as it was the work under Nast in the West that 
brought about our mission to Germany. Pastor Hedstrom 
continued at the Bethel ship till 1875, when his place was 
taken by the Rev. D. S. Sorlin, and afterward by the Rev. O. 
P. Peterson. The fire thus kindled at New York speedily 
spread to the States westward, whither the immigrants tended, 
and in 1870 there were about 4,o00 members. At present 
there are nearly 14,000, organized into two Annual Confer- 
ences, and with some sixteen other districts or missions scat- 
tered about. These missions receive aid the present year to the 
amount of $51,500, or more than the Germans, who get 
$47,290. ‘They are poorer than the Germans, but contribute 
very liberally, according to their means, for the maintenance 
of the gospel. 

The work in the other languages is comparatively small, 
although taking them all together they consume nearly 
$50,000. ‘The French work is growing in importance because 
of the great numbers of Canadians that are flocking over the 
border into our manufacturing cities and towns. ‘The increas- 
ing colonies of Bohemians, Hungarians, and Italians in New 


68 THE PASTOR’ S UMISSIONARYYMANUAL. 


York, Chicago, Cleveland, and the mining districts of Penn- 
sylvania very properly are receiving larger attention. And 
the Chinese and Japanese on the Pacific coast have every claim 
on'our Christian compassion. Work among them was begun 
in 1868 in response to the manifest call of Providence demand- 
ing of the American churches that they make a vigorous en- 
deavor to Christiayize the tens of thousands of idolaters throng- 
ing to our shores. ‘The Rev. Otis Gibson, for ten years mis- 
sionary at Foochow, did yeoman service here till incapacitated 
by disease, in 1885, and death, in 1889. A. well-furnished 
mission house was erected in 1870, regular preaching has been 
earnestly carried on, and both Sunday-schools and day-schools 
have>been industriously gathered. ‘The first baptism’ was in 
October, 1871, and since then no year has been without con- 
siderable fruit. A number who were converted here have re- 
turned to China. ‘The same is true of the Japanese, who now 
number three thousand or over in San Francisco, and who are 
very accessible to the gospel. We have been preaching to them 
for about ten years. In 1886 the Rev. M.C. Harris, who had 
been fifteen years in Japan, took charge of the Japanese Mis- 
sion. A pleasant feature of this work is the branch church 
established a few years ago in Honolulu, where, among the 
rapidly increasing Japanese population, very many converts 
have been won. Over 3,000 Chinese and about 300 Japanese 
have received instruction in our schools since the California 
Mission was established. Over 185 Chinese women and girls 
have been rescued from domestic and brothel slavery. Nearly 
300 Chinese and Japanese have been baptized and admitted 
into the church. ‘There are at present about 200 members. 

Such is a brief summary of the work on our own soil, for 
which the General Committee at its last session appropriated 
$459,648. Without question a full million could profitably be 
devoted every year to the ever-pressing needs of this field to 
which our Church is so eminently adapted, and in which it 
has won such laurels. May the time soon come when this 
amount can easily be obtained! 


XI. The Conference Missionary Society. 


IT is very evident that the wise men who framed our most 
adnirable system of Missionary agencies thought that the 
Conference Missionary Society could do much for the cause of 
missions. ‘They made ample provision for it, as will be seen 
by consulting Art. IX of the Constitution of the Missionary 
Society, which reads: ‘‘It is recommended that within the 
bounds of each Annual Conference there be established a Con- 
ference Missionary Society, auxiliary to this institution, under 
such regulations as the Conferences shall respectively pre- 
Scribes” 

Paragraph 353 of the Discipline is still stronger, running 
as follows: ‘‘It shall be the duty of each Annual Conference 
to form within its bounds a Conference Missionary Society, 
which shall appoint its own officers, fix the terms of member- 
ship, and otherwise regulate its own administration. But it 
shall pay all its funds into the treasury of the Parent Society.’ 
Here is not only full authorization for the Society; but its 
formation is made obligatory, and manifestly much was ex- 
pected of it. 

Has this expectation been realized? No. For in most 
cases the Conference Missionary Society is a merely nominal 
affair. What ought to be a power is simply a form if not a 
farce. As commonly managed, the Society has no other func- 
tion than to hold an anniversary at the time of the Conference 
session. It should, and might, do much more than this if it 
were really organized for work. We are fully persuaded that 
its relation to the Conference ought in every case to be speedily 
changed from supernumerary to effective. 

There is a sphere for it to fill which cannot be occupied 
-elther by the preachers-in-charge or by the Presiding Elders. 
The latter should be in the closest relations with the Society. 
and can do much for it; but as the authority of each Elder is 
confined to his own district, and as his hands are full of a mul- 
titude of things, it is plain that something more is necessary if 
the Conference as a whole is to be kept wide-awake about Mis- 
sions. Itis also plain that the General Secretaries at New 
York, already greatly overworked, cannot supply information 
and inspiration in any sufficient degree for each one of a hun- 
dred Conferences, much less for each one of twelve thousand 
ministers and churches. 

The labors of these Corresponding Secretaries need to be 
supplemented by the labors of a body of Conference Secretaries, 

69 


70 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


one in each Conference, who will form a connecting link, a 
channel of communication between the officials at the center 
and the local pastors. Such acorps of enthusiastic men, one 
hundred strong, glad of the opportunity to expend time and 
strength in the cause they love the best, would be invaluable 
to the Society, and would easily add one hundred thousand 
dollars to its collections. They could do very much to inaug- 
urate and hold local conventions at appropriate centers, not 
simply here one and there another, but in a series successively, 
on some definite plan, and with an economical marshalling of 
all available resources. They could formulate and carry 
through with fine effect simultaneous meetings in a given 
week through the whole length and breadth of a Conference, 
reaching every church with circulars and literature and spe- 
cially designated speakers. They could arrange a system of 
missionary deputations, which has done such wonders among 
our Wesleyan brethren in England and Canada. ‘They could 
greatly extend the circulation of our excellent missionary 
periodicals, and could stimulate the missionary organization of 
the Sunday-schools, which in many places is still so greatly 
neglected. é 

All this has been done during the past few years by the New 
England Conference Missionary Society, and possibly by a few 
others. Enough certainly has been accomplished to demon- 
strate the feasibility of this proposed utilization of what Bishop 
Thoburn well called ‘fan unused right arm.’’ Why should 
not the movement spread? Let each Conference adopt a simple 
Constitution, elect officers under it, and go to work. We give 
further on, as a working model, that in use by the New Eng- 
land Conference, simply adding that the sixteen members there 
provided for have been thus far made up of eight pastors, the 
four Presiding Elders, and four laymen, one from each dis- 
trict; and the arrangement nas worked very well. 

Much depends, of course, on the careful selection of the 
managers, and the still more careful selection of the chief ex-_ 
ecutive officers, especially the secretary. With the right ones. 
in control, chosen solely for their zeal and efficiency in this 
particular branch of effort, and with sufficient powers entrusted 
to them so that they shall not be hampered, there is no reason 
why great good should not be effected. ‘There is in every 
Conference, it may be assumed, a group of ministers whose 
hearts are in this work of missions and who are ready to make 
sacrifices to further it. Let them be gotten together occasion- 
ally round acouncil table, and they will soon find ways to do 
something that will tell on the advancement of the Redeemer’s 
kingdom in the world at large. It ought not to be impossible 
anywhere to bring this about. Let some one who teads these 


THIS CONFERENCE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. (e' 


lines and on whose heart God may place the burden move in 
the matter with vigor at once, and see that his own Confer- 
ence wheels fully into line. 

We cannot afford at this time to lose any agency or let any 
part of our skillfully devised machinery lie idle. Much larger 
sums of money must be raised for the cause and for the nations 
which cry to us so mightily on every hand for help. Our past 
deficiencies have been due not so much to the poverty of the 
people or even perhaps to their lack of the requisite consecra- 
tion, as to the lack of adequate information and its accom- 
panying inspiration. ‘The Conference Missionary Society can 
greatly aid in supplying this need. It is the missing link. It 
is the idle wheel that should be put in working order without 
delay. So shall the twelve hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
lars which we now raise for both Home and Foreign Missions 
before many years be increased to one million for each, and 
many a long-neglected wilderness be made to blossom as 
the rose. 


CONSTITUTION. 


ABTIGUR les Lhis Society shallibe known as the. > 20. wc deve decerciere es 
Conference Missionary Society, and shall be auxiliary to the Missionary 
Society of the M. E. Church. 

ARTICLE II. All members of the Conference shall be members of this 
Society. : 

ARTICLE III. The Conference at each annual session shall appoint a 
Board of sixteen Managers, who shall choose from their own number the 
other officers of the Society, viz., a president, vice-president, secretary, 
and treasurer. These latter officers shall perform the duties usually con- 
nected with their names, and shall together constitute an Executive 
Comunittee. 

ARTICLE IV. It shall be the chief duty of the Board of Managers to 
aid the Presiding Elders and the preachers-in-charge to carry out the 
directions of the Discipline in the chapter on Missions, so as to diffuse 
Missionary intelligence, increase the Missionary collections, and promote 
in all available ways the interests of the Missionary cause. They shall 
present a report to the Conference at each annual session, this report to 
include nominations for a Board of Managers for the ensuing year. They 
ghall have entire charge of the Conference Missionary anniversaries; they 

_shall hold meetings for consultation as often as practicable, and shall be 
authorized to make all necessary by-laws not inconsistent with this Con- 
stitution. 

ARTICLE V. This Constitution may be amended at any annual ses- 
sion of the Conference, by two-thirds of those present and voting. 


XIT. Simultaneous Missionary Meetings. 


Tuis term has come into use to describe a multitude of 
meetings held in many places, under one general direction, 
within the compass of a single selected week. The idea seems 
to have originated with the Church Missionary Society of Eng- 
land which first held such meetings in Great Britain in Feb- 
ruary, 1866. It was taken up on this side of the water by the 
Presbyterian Svnod of New Jersey in November, 1887, and 
later by the whole Presbyterian Chnrch. Several of the Meth- 
odist Conferences, notably the New England, have also put it 
in practice, and the American Board has now for three years 
united with the Methodists in its observance during the first 

week in October. 

The main thought of the movement is to help to ednhare 
the people in the principles of missions by presenting the cause 
divorced from the usual appeal for money and the urging of 
the claims of a society. The main stress is laid on obedience 
to the command of Christ, and on the glorification of the 
Savior as the great Head of the Church. The aim is to keep 
iton a high spiritual level, and to profoundly impress the 
people that the gospel is a sacred trust which we mzst pass on 
to others as rapidly as possible or else forfeit our right to be 
accounted followers of Jesus. 

Each church is permitted to select for its meeting that par- 
ticular day which will be most convenient to itself so far as 
may be consistent with the necessary arrangements for speakers 
and with the observance of the same week. One or two 
speakers, usually one, are furnished from a central agency to 
each church agreeing to arrange for a meeting, entertain the 
speaker, and pay the small sum needed for his traveling ex- 
penses, any little balance left over being remitted to head- 
quarters for use in the general conduct of the campaign. ‘Thé 
pastors are almost exclusively the speakers, moving about 
to one another’s churches, thus increasing the connectional 
feeling and promoting church fellowship. Not the least of the 
benefits of the plan is also found in the fact that the ministers 
who are called upon to speak are thus led to study the ques- 
tion very closely with the result of greatly increasing their own 
information and enthusiasm. An effort is made to furnish 
them with special material that will assist in the preparation 
of the addresses. Union meetings are a frequent feature of 
the week, several churches of the same, or, preferably, of dif- 
ferent denominations, joining forces, either for a mass meeting 

ms) 


SIMULTANEOUS MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 63) 


on the same night, or for a series of meetings on successive 
nights. In some cases there are all-day meetings, in others 
the gatherings are afternoon and evening, the ladies being 
assembled at one time, the children at another, but in the 
greater number of places only an evening meeting isattempted. 
All the pastors, or nearly all, also agree to preach, on the Sun- 
day with which the week begins, a special missionary sermon, 
by exchange, in some other pulpit than their own. 

It can readily be seen how great are the advantages that 
must accrue from the thorough carrying out of such an 
arrangement as has here been briefly outlined. The simultan- 
eousness of the movement over a wide section of country pro- 
duces no little moral effect. Special facilities can be provided 
from the central agency in the way of fresh information and 
interesting addresses. The magnitude ot the undertaking 
arrests attention. And the concentration of prayer and labor 
during this specified time gives the topic a place in the hearts 
and minds of the people it could not otherwise secure. A 
special week being set apart for this particular work, it re- 
ceives an amount of thought which, in the pressure of multi- 
farious affairs, it would not otherwise be likely to get. 

It reaches a much larger proportion of the membership of 
the churches than District Conventions, because it does not 
attempt to transport them to some more or less distant center, 
but.takes the meeting to their own place of assembly. It also 
brings into co-operation and participation in the benefit a very 
much larger number of preachers. The expense is slight and 
easily borne, as the speakers make no charge for their ser- 
vices. It is something that can be kept up year after year, as 
it does not depend upon securing the presence of special 
officials or extraordinary attractions. - It isin full harmony 
with the important principle that people will give to missions 
only in proportion as they are interested in them, and will be- 
come interested only in proportion as they are informed about 
them. 

It closely resembles the scheme of deputations by which, 
among our Wesleyan brethren in England and Canada, the in- 
terest in the world-wide spread of the gospel has been so greatly 
promoted. ‘They far surpass us in pro vata giving and in gen- 
eral comprehension of the underlying principles of the great 
theme, because of the systematic, thorough-going way in 
which, year after year, they have been rooted and grounded 
in those principles. And it is on this kind of work that we 
must increasingly rely as a church if we are to do our part in 
saving the world. Extraordinary appeals and spasmodic ex- 
ertions will not meet the real needs of the case. The educat- 
ing processes must go on qitletly, steadily, strongly, all the 


v4 THE PASTOR'S, MISSIONARY MANCAL. 


while, until all the people, or most of them at least, come to 
see that no church of Christ is fulfilling its appointed purpose or 
meeting the expectation of the Master unless it is working 
heartily for the evangelization of the heathen millions. | 

Last year four of the New England Conferences joined in 
observing the same week. One of the presiding elders in the 
East Maine Conference writes as follows: ‘‘The meetings with 
us were a grand success. Glowing reports come from all the 
charges where they were held. They were held in all the 
charges except four. The people who attended enjoyed them 
very much. They have given increased interest to the mission- 
ary cause on this district. Our preachers took hold of them 
finely and made the most of them. I think another year they 
will be of still more profit to us.’’ 

A presiding elder in the Maine Conference writes: ‘“The 
nussionary meetings in this district were almost universally 
observed and were a success. Both ministers and people en- 
joyed them. ‘They awakened interest which in some instances 
approached enthusiasm. We shall certainly hold them next 
Weare 

A presiding elder in the New England Southern Conference 
writes: ‘‘ The plan was more generally carried out than last 
year. I think I could make the movement more efficient for 
good another year than it was this. I strongly favor the con- 
tinuance of the meetings.’’ 

In all these Conferences the matter was managed by dis- 
tricts, the elder being the chief prompter, and a committee or 
committees taking charge of details. In the New England 
Conference, while all the elders are in hearty sympathy with 
the movement and lend their co-operation, the management of 
the details for all the districts is left with the secretary of the 
Conference Missionary Society. During each of the past two 
years not far from 150 missionary meetings have been held in 
the churches of this Conference during the same week, besides 
a great number of missionary sermons preached by exchange 
on the Lord’s Day which begins the week. And the Confer- 
ence at its session last April unanimously voted hearty approval 
of the continuance of the plan, and pledged its personal co- 
operation to make the week a success for another year. It is 
undoubtedly owing, in part at least, to these and other means 
of this sort employed that the contributions of this Conference 
to the treasury of the Missionary Society have increased from 
$15,938 in 1885 to $30,064 in 1891. In other words, while in 
six years past the receipts from all the Conferences have 
increased about sixty per cent., the receipts from this Confer-. 
ence have increased about ninety per cent. 


SIMULTANEOUS MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 1 


Why should not all the Conferences adopt the plan? It 
requires much hard work, no doubt, to carry it through suc- 
cessfully. But in view of its great value as an aid in the her- 
culean task of arousing the churches to some adequate compre- 
hension of their responsibility for the evangelization of the 
world, who will say that the work is not well worth while. 
And surely in every Conference some one can be found with 
zeal and influence sufficient to make the enterprise prosper. 
For the Master’s sake and for the sake of the perishing world, 
let it not fail to be done. 


XIII. Texts for Missionary Sermons. 


No attempt is made here to give an exhaustive list of all 
passages that refer directly or indirectly to the subject of 
missions, or of such passages as may be made the basis of 
trains of thought appropriate to missionary occasions. If 
this were done no inconsiderable part of the Scriptures must 
needs be transcribed. ‘The Bible is crowded with missionary 
themes and missionary principles. It has been well said, ‘‘If 
you cut out of the Bible whatever pertains directly or indirectly 
to missions—all precepts, promises, parables, discourses, all 
the drift and tendency of prophecy, and history, and gospel, 
and epistle in the direction of missions, and all dispensational 
dealing and leading having the: same significance—you will 
have nothing but the covers left.’ We have aimed to give 
in what follows simply a convenient assortment that might 
be suggestive and helpful to the hurried pastor seeking a text. 


GEN. iv., 9. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?” 

GEN. xxii., 18. ‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” 

GEN. xlii., 21. ‘We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we 
saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not 
hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.”’ 

LEV. xix., 34. ‘‘Thou shalt love the:stranger as thyself.” 

NuM. xiii., 30. ‘‘Caleb said, Let us go up at once and possess it; for we 
are well able to overcome it.’’ 

Num. xiv., 21. ‘“The Lord said, As truly as I live, all the earth shall be 
filled with the glory of the Lord.’’ 

JUDGES v., 23. ‘“‘Curse’ ye Meroz, because they came not to the help of 
the Lord against the mighty.”’ 

II. SAM. xxiv., 24. ‘‘Neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord 
my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”’ 

TI. KINGS vil., 9. ‘‘Wedo not well: this day is a day of good tidings, 
and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mis- 
chief will come upon us: now, therefore, come, that we may go and 
tell the king’s household.”’ 

II. CHRON. ii., 5. ‘“The house which I build is great: for great is our 
God above all gods.”’ 

PSALMS 11., 8. “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the eaten for thine 
inheritance.’ | 
PSALMS xxil., 27. ‘All the ends of the world shall remember and turn 

unto the Lord.”’ 

PSALMS xlv., Io, 11. ‘‘Forget thine own people and thy father’s house; 
so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty.”’ 

PsaLMs Ixviii., 31. ‘‘Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” 

PSALMS Ixxii., 16,17, 18,19. ‘‘An handful of corn upon the top of the 
mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. All nations 
shall call him blessed. Let the whole earth be filled with his glory.” 


76 


TEXTS FOR MISSIONARY SERMONS. rar 


PSALMS Ixxxvi., 9. “‘All nations shall glorify thy name.”’ 

PSALMS cii., 15. ‘“The heathen shall fear the name ofthe Lord, and all 
the kings of the earth thy glory.” 

PSALMS cxix., 130. ‘‘The entrance of thy words giveth light.’’ 

PROV. xxiv., 11, 12. ‘“Ifthou forbear to deliver them that are drawn 
unto death, and those that are ready to be slain: if thou sayest, Be- 
hold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider 
it, and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” 

ISAIAH li., 18. ‘The idols he shall utterly abolish.” 


ISAIAH vi., 8. “TI heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I aon 
and who will go forus? ‘Then said I, Here am I, send me.” 


ISAIAH ix., 2. ‘‘The peopie that walked in darkness have seen a great 
light.” 

ISAIAH xi., 9. ‘‘The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as 
the waters cover the sea.”’ HAB. il., 14. 

ISAIAH xiv., 26. ‘‘This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole 
earth.”’ 


ISAIAH xxxil., 20, ‘‘Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.’ 


ISAIAH xxxv., I. ‘“The wilderness shall be glad, the desert shall blossom 
as the rose.”’ 


ISAIAH xl., 3. ‘‘Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”’ 


ISAIAH xlii., 4. ‘‘He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set 
judgment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.’’ 


ISAIAH liv., 2. ‘‘Enlarge the place of thy tent, lengthen thy cords, and 
strengthen thy stakes.’”’ (Wm. Carey’s text, May 31, 1792.) 


ISAIAH ly., 5. ‘‘Nations that know not thee shall run unto thee because 
of the Lord thy God.”’ 


ISAIAH lx., 22. ‘‘A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one 
a strong nation; I, the Lord, will hasten it in his time.’’ 


EZEKIEL xxxix., 21. ‘I will set my glory among the heathen.”’ 
EZEKIEL xlvii., 1-12. The vision of the waters. 
EZEKIEL xlvii., 9. ‘Everything shall live whither the river cometh.”’ 


DAN. ii., 35. ‘‘The stone that smote the image became a great mountain 
and filled the whole earth.”’ 


DAN. vil., 18. ‘‘The saints of the Most High shall take the SIERO S 
DAN. vii., 27. ‘‘All dominions shall serve and obey him.”’ 


ZEPH. ii, 11. ‘‘Men shall worship him, even all the isles of the 
heathen.”’ 


HAGGATii., 7. ‘‘The desire of all nations shall come.’’ 

ZECH. iv.,6. ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit.” 

ZECH. iv., 7. ‘‘Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel. 
thou skalt become a plain.”’ 

ZECH. xiv., 9. ‘“The Lord shall be king over all the earth.”’ 

MAL. i., 11. ‘In every place incense shall be offered unto my name.”’ 

MATT. v., 13, 14. ‘‘Ye are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.” 


MATT’. vi., 10. ‘“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is 
in heaven.”’ 


MATT. vi.. 20. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” 
MATT. vi., 33. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” 


MATT. vii., 12. ‘‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to. 
you, do ye even so to them.”’ 


73 THE PASTOR’ S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


MATT. ix., 28. ‘Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth 
laborers.”’ . 

MavTr. x., 8. ‘Freely ye have received, freely give.”’ 

MATT. xiii., 33. ‘“‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a 
woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was 
leavened.’ 

Marr. xiii., 38. ‘The field is the world.”’ 

Marr. xvi., 18. ‘Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it.’’ 

Mart. xix., 26. “With God all things are possible.” 

MATT. xxv., 45. ‘‘Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, 
ye did it not to me.” 

MATT. xxvili., 18, 19, 20. ‘‘All power, all nations, all things, all the 


days. Go ye, make disciples, baptizing, teaching: I am with you, » 


unto the end of the world.’’ 

MARK xii, 31. ‘“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”’ 

MARK xvi., 15. ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
every creature.”’ 

LUKE vi., 38. ‘‘Give and it shall be given unto you. For with the same 
measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.’’ 

LUKE AX} 135-3 Givetye them toveatts ae 

LUKE x., 36, 37. ‘‘Which was neighbor unto him that fell among the 
thieves? He that showed mercy to him. Go and do thou likewise !”’ 

LUKE xiv., 23. ‘‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them 
to come in.”’ 

LUKE xxiy., 47. ‘‘Repentance and remission of sins should be preached 
in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem.”’ 

JOHNi., 4. “In him was life, and the life-was the light of men.” 

JOHN ili., 16. ‘‘God so loved the world.”’ 

JOHN iv., 35. “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are 
white already to harvest.”’ 


JOHN xvii., 18. ‘‘As thou, Father, hast sent me unto the world, even so 
have I also sent them unto the world.’’ 
JOHN xx., 21. ‘‘As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”’ 


AcTSi., 8. ‘‘Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and 
in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth.’’ 

ACTS xili., 2. ‘The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul 
for the work whereunto I have called them.’’ 

ACTS xiii., 47. “‘I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou 
shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” 

ACTS xvi., 9. ‘Come over into Macedonia and help us.” 

Acts. xvii., 26. ‘‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men.’’ 

ACTS xxvili., 28. ‘“‘The salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and 
they will hear it.’’ 

Rom. i., 14. ‘I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians.”’ 

Rom. i.,15. ‘‘I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome 
also.”’ 

Rom. x., 13, 14, ¥5.  ‘‘How shall they hear without a preacher? and how 
shall they preach except they be sent?” 


“ 


TEXAS LOR MISSIONARY SERMONS. 79 


Rom. xv., 1. ‘‘We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of 
the weak, and not to please ourselves.’’ 

I. Cor. xv., 25. ‘‘He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his 
teeta 


II. Cor. v., 14. ‘“The love of Christ constraineth us.’’ 

II. Cor. x., 16. ‘Preach the gospel in the regions beyond.” 

GAL, i1., 10. . “‘Remember the poor.”’ 

GAL, vi., 2. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of 
Christ,’ 

GAL. vi., 9. ‘In due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.”’ 

EPH. lil., 11. “‘According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in 
Christ Jesus our Lord.’’ 

PHIL. ii., 5. ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ.’’ 


PHIL. ii., 10, 11. ‘“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”’ 


IL. Tuess.. iii. 1. ‘‘Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may 
have free course and be glorified.’’ 


I Tr. ii., 1. “I exhort that first ofall supplications be made for all men.”’ 

HEB. vili., 11. ‘‘All shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”’ 

HEB. xili., 3. ‘Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.’’ 

I JOHN ili., 17. ‘‘Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother 
have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how 
dwelleth the love of God in him ?” 

REv. xy., 4. ‘‘All nations shall come and worship before thee.” 

REV. x«1l,,02. 9 lhe leayes of the tree were’ for the healing of: the 
nations.”’ 


4 


The principal missionary chapters suitable for reading in 
whole or in part at public gatherings are these: ° 


PSALMS 2, 72, 115, 135; Isaiah 2, 9, II, 35, 40, 44, 49, 54, 55, 60; Ezekiel 
47; Matthew 25, 28; Luke 10; Romaus I, 


XIV. Topics for Missionary Addresses. 


THE special topics for missionary addresses are almost 
numberless, since the general theme may be (and, indeed, for 
adequate treatment, must be) quite minutely subdivided, and 
each particular occasion will demand the presentation of a 
particular phase or the employment of a particular method. 
There is now such an immense amount of material available, 
and “different. minds work so variously upon it, making their 
individual selections, and treating it from their personal points 
of view, that scarcely any two speeches or sermons can strictly — 
be given the same title. The subjects noted below are, of 
course, but a few out of many. It is hoped they may be found 
useful in suggesting lines of thought and speech. 


Motives for Missions; Why Should We Push Them ? 
Current Objections Answered. 
The Missionary Idea in the Old Testament. 
The Missionary Idea in the New Testament. 
Religious Outlook of the World. 
Results of Missionary Effort. 
Reflex Benefits of Missionary Exertion. 
Heroism of Missions. 
Obligation of the Church to the Heathen. 
True Place of Missions in Church Work. 
The World for Christ and Christ for the World. 
The Kingdom of God. 
Methods of Promoting the Missionary Spirit. 
Some Striking Missionary Successes. 
Why Has Not the World been Wholly Evangelized ? 
Origin and History of the Modern Missionary Enterprise. 
Relations of Missions to Commerce. 
Missions One Hundred Years Ago and Now. 
Have Missions been a Failure ? 
Impress of Christianity upon Japan. 
The Hope and Peril of India. 
China’s Millions. 
Africa as a Mission Field. 
The Island World. 
Responsibility of the United States for the Evangelization of the World. 
Responsibility of Methodism for the Evangelization of the World. 
The United States as a Field for Evangelization. 
The Demands of the West. 
What We Get for What We Give. 
Methodism in Many Lands. 
Master Missionaries. 
The Great Commission. 
The Map of the World. 
The Great Religions. 
Our Duty to the American Aborigines. 
Our South-American Cousins. 
80 


TOPICS FOR MISSIONARY ADDRESSES. 51 


Our Next-Door Neighbor. 

Missions to Roman Catholics. 

Islam and Christianity. 

Missions to the Jews. 

Child Life in Foreign Lands. 

The Gods of India. 

Domestic and Social Custonis of the Hindoos. 
Moravian Missions. 

Woman Without the Gospel. 

Fetichism and Devil Worship. 

Work Among the Lepers. 

The Epworth League and Missions, 

The Student Volunteer Movement. 
Missionary Conferences. 

The Living Church a Missionary Church. 
Aims and Claims of Christian Missions. 
Praying and Paying, 

The True Missionary Spirit. 

Pentecost and World-Wide Missions. 
Geography and Missions. 

Philology and Missions. 

The Sunday School and Missions. 

Missions in Literature. 

Missionary Work the Highest Glorification of God. 
Missionary Work the Exactest Imitation of Christ. 
The Philosophy of Christian Missions. 
Difficulties and Encouragements. 

Some Missionary Heroes. 

Martyrs on the Mission Field. 

Romance and Reality of Missions, 

Moffatt, Livingstone, Stanley. 

Miracles of Missions. 

Marvelous Madagascar. 

The Story of Siam. 

The Bible in Burmah. 

Woman’s Work for Woman. 

The Evangelization of the World in the Present Generation. 
Buddhism in America and Asia, 
Self-Supporting Missions and Missionaries. 
Christianization and Civilization. 

Medical Missions. 

Heroines of the Mission Field. 


A course of lectures delivered at Andover a few years since 
by the Rev. Edward A. Lawrence treated the following sub- 
jects: Providence in Missions, The Philosophy of Missions, 
The Asiatic Field, The Departments of Work, The Mission 
Home and Rest, The Church and Missions. 

A recent course of.three lectures by the Rev. Dr. S. L. 
Baldwin at the Drew Theological Seminary had topics as fol- 
lows: The Nature and Scope of Christian Missions, False and 
True Conceptions of Missionary Work, The Call and Qualifi- 
cations of Missionaries. 

The Rey. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson lectured at Rutger’s Col- 
lege in the early part of this year on the following themes: 
The Idea of Missions a Thought of God, The Plan of Missions 


82° THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


a Scheme of God, The Work of Missions a Fellowship with 
God, The Spirit of Missions an Inbreathing, The Field of Mis- 
sions an Assignment, The Success of Missions the Seal of God, 
The Present Crisis of Missions. 

Dr. J. H. Latimer, Professor of Systematic Theology in the 
Boston University School of Theology, was accustomed for 
many years to deliver to his classes the following course of 
lectures: Obligations of the Missionary Enterprise, Potencies 
of the Missionary Enterprise, The Inadequate Methods, The 
‘True Theory of Missions, Successes of the Missionary Enter- 
prise, Reflex Benefits of Missions, Obstacles to Missions, 
Heathenism in the Field, History of Protestant Missions, 
Literature of Missions. 

The preparer of this pamphlet delivers annually at the 
school last mentioned the following fifteen lectures: Christian 
Missions Defined and Defended, Leading Incentives to Mis- 
sionary Activity, Current Objections Answered, Mission . 
Economics, Life in the Mission Field, Who Should Go? The 
Home Pastor’s Part, Primitive Missions, Medieval Missions, 
Roman Catholic Missions, Protestant Missions in the Sixteenth, 
Seventeenth and HKighteenth Centuries, Protestant Missions in 
the Nineteenth Century, M. E. Missionary Societies, M. EH. 
Missions among Non-Christians, M. EK. Missions in Christian 
Lands. ' 


Bishop John P. Newman in holding a series of Missionary 
Conventions lately discoursed on the following topics: The 
Uplifting Power of a Great Thought—the Conversion of the 
World; Why Does the Missionary Cause Move so Tardily? 
Why Send the Gospel to the Heathen? The Entire Sanctifica- 
tion of the Believer the Sure Guarantee of the World’s Speedy 
Conversion ; Goodness, Intellect, and Wealth, the Three Ele- 
ments of Conquest, but the Greatest of these is Goodness ; In- 
dications of Progress in a Hundred Years; Christ the Great 
Need of Humanity, and the Only Remedy for Our World’s Sin 
and Misery. 

Bishop James M. Thoburn in 1887 and 1888 gave five mis- 
sionary lectures before the students of the Garrett Biblical In- 
stitute and five before the School of Theology of Boston Uni- 
versity. The subjects treated were as follows: The Spirit of 
Missions, The Young Missionary’s Call and Equipment, Mis- 
sionary Methods, The Moral State of the Heathen, Missionary 
Service as a Career, The Farewell Commandment, The Beggar 
at Our Gate, The New Missionary Era, The World’s Pente- 
cost, The Prophet to the Nations.* 


*Published by the Methodist Book Concern, New York, 1888. 


TOPICS FOR MISSIONARY ADDRESSES. 83 


President Julius H. Seelye of Amherst College, returning 
some years ago from a tour in heathen lands around the globe, 
delivered the following six lectures: The Condition and Wants 
of the Unchristian World, Failure of the Ordinary Appliances 
of Civilization to Improve the World, The Adequacy of the 
Gospel, The Millenarian Theory of Missions, The True Method 
of Missionary Operations, Motives for a Higher Consecration 
to the Missionary Work.* 

Dr. Augustus C. Thompson gave in 1889 ten lectures be- 
fore the Senior Class of the Hartford Theological Seminary, 
treating these five subjects: The Minister’s Sphere, Mission- 
ary Obligation, Prayer and Missions, Missionary Concerts, 
Missionary Conferences.f 

Dr. Rufus Anderson, for so many years Foreign Secretary 
tothe. Bb. Ca. lho My eave-an extended course of lectures in 
1868 and 1869 before the students of six Theological Semin- 
aries, beginning with Andover. The following topics were 
treated: An Opening World, An Uprising Church, Develop- 
ment of the Idea of the Christian Church, Characteristics of 
Apostolic Missions, Irish Missions in the Early Ages, Histori- 
cal Development of Modern Missions, Principles and Methods 
of Modern Missions, Value of Native Churches, Missionary 
Life Illustrated, Hindrances at Home, Diffusion of Missions, 
Success of Missions, Claims of Missions on Young Ministers, 
Romish Missions as an Opposing Force.} 

*New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1876. 


+New York, Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1889. 
tNew York, Chas, Scribner & Co., 1870. 


XV. Missionary Thoughts in Poetry. 


To rounda paragraph or point an appeal a poetical putting 
of the truth is oftentimes most serviceable. A stanza or a 
hymn will carry home with double power the thought which 
has been already, in tamer fashion, presented in prose. — Be- 
sides the thirty-seven selections, Nos. 908-944, specially de- 
voted to this subject in our Hymnal, many verses in other 
parts of the book will be found to have immediate application 
to this theme and to be very suitable for comment or quotation. 
Examples may be seen in the second stanza of the first hymn,’ 
the first stanza of the eighth, the first and third stanzas of the 
seventeenth, and the fifth of the 248th : — 


‘My gracious Master and my God, 
Assist me to proclaim, 
To spread through all the earth abroad, 
The honors of thy name.’’ 


‘‘ From all that dwell below the skies, 
Let the Creator’s praise arise ; 
Let the Redeemer’s name be sung, 
Through every land, by every tongue.’’ 
‘Tet all on earth their voices raise, © 
To sing the great Jehovah’s praise, 
And bless his holy name ; 
His glory let the heathen know, 
His wonders to the nations show, 
His saving grace proclaim. 


‘““Come the great day, the glorious hour, 
When earth shall feel his saving power, 
All nations fear his name : 
Then shall the race of men confess 
The beauty of his holiness, 
His saving grace proclaim.’’ 


‘‘Let every kindred, every tribe, 
On this terrestrial ball, 
To him all majesty ascribe, 
And crown him Lord of all.”’ 


In fact, the whole Hymnal, like the whole Bible on which 
it is built and whose Psalms it so closely copies, is permeated 
in every part with the principles that underlie the evangeliza- 
tion of the world. And frequently by the allowable change of 
a single word some familiar hymn not peculiarly or strictly 
missionary may receive a turn in this direction, to the enrich- 
ment of its thought and the deepening of its holy impression. 
It is said that Bishop Janes loved to substitute, in the third 
line of ‘‘A charge to keep I have,’’ the word world for soul ,; 

54 


MISSIONARY THOUGHTS IN: POETRY. 85 


and who cannot feel how much the stanza thereby gains in 
breadth and depth. No one can thoughtfully sing the long 
metre doxology, ‘‘ Praise him all creatures here below,’’ with- 
out breathing a prayer for the world-wide reign of our glorious 
Lord. 

Outside of our Hymnal there are very many selections in 
verse appropriate for use in missionary sermons and addresses. 
We append a few: 


Have you found the heavenly light ? 
Pass it on ! 

Souls are groping in the night, 
Daylight gone ! 

Hold thy lighted lamp on high, 

Be a star in some one’s sky, 

He may live who else would die— 
Pass it on ! 


We know not where in agony of waiting, 
Our veiled and silent company may be ; 
From India, China, Persia, Syria gathered, 
Or islands of the sea ; 
But let us lift our eyes, with faith-taught vision, 
Their bitter griefs and cruel wrongs to see, 
Or let their pain and degradation utter 
For them, a piteous plea. — 


Oh for this holy dawning 
We watch and wait and pray, 
Till o’er the height the morning light 
Shall drive the gloom away ; 
And when the heavenly glory 
Shall flood the earth and sky, 
We’ll bless the Lord for all his Word, 
And praise him by and by. 


Far and wide though all unknowiug 
Pants for Thee each mortal breast, 

Human tears for Thee are flowing, 
Human hearts in Thee would rest. 


Thirsting as for dews of even, 
As the new-mown grass for rain, 
Thee they seek as God of heaven, 
Thee as man for sinners slain. 


Fling out the banner ! heathen lands 
Shall see from far the glorious sight, 

And nations, crowding to be born, 
Baptize their spirits in its light. 


Fling out the banner wide and high! 
Seaward and skyward let it shine — 
Nor skill nor might nor merit ours ; 
We conquer only in this sign. 


86 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


We are living, we are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time, 
In an age on ages telling ; 
To be living is sublime. 

Hark, the waking up of nations, 
Gog and Magog to the fray, 
Hark, what soundeth? Is creation 
Groaning for its latter day? 


Worlds are changing, heaven beholding, 
Thou hast but an hour to fight ; 
Now the blazoned Cross unfolding, 
On, right onward for the right! 
On, let all the soul within you 
For the truth’s sake go abroad, 
Strike, let every nerve and sinew 
Tell on ages, tell for God. 


A 


Lands, long benighted, the morning is nearing, 
Lift, with the waves, the glad song of the free ; 
He that was promised, in triumph appearing, 
Now wields his sway o’er the land and the sea. 


Loud from the tops of the mountains sing praises ; 
Valleys shall ring with the echoing strain ; 

Mighty in war, He the standard upraises, 
Glorious in peace, He advances to reign. 


TELL US OF THY GOD. 


A distant sound oft breaks upon mine ear, 

In solemn cadence, like the hollow moan of dying winds ; 
List, list, I hear it now. 

Perchance ’tis but the sighing of the waves, 
For oft I’ve heard them in the silent night 
Chant mournful dirges for the buried dead. 
Again I hear it, ’tis the sound of woe; 

It swells from human hearts, it is the voice 
Of millions starving for the bread of life. 

With gasping breath they send the cry abroad, 
Tell us, O Christian, tell us of thy God. 


That voice pursues me, and where’er I go, 

By day, by night, its wailing fills mine ear ; 
To me it calls, O tell us of thy God! 

My Saviour I behold—with pierced hand 

He points to heathen shores, he bids me go, 
And break the bread of life to dying souls. 
And can I linger, when my Lord commands? 
(,lad I obey, His presence will attend, 

His grace will strengthen, and I ask no more; 
Then let us send the gospel news abroad, 

Till all shall know and love the Christian’s God. 


MISSIONARY THOUGHTS IN POETRY. 8% 


THE KINGDOM COMING. 


From all the dark places 
Of earth’s heathen races, 

O see how the thick shadows fly ! 
The voice of salvation 
Awakes every nation ; 

Come over and help us,’ they cry. 


The sunlight is glancing 
O’er armies advancing, 
To conquer the kingdoms of sin. 
Our Lord shall possess them, 
His presence shall bless them, 
His beauty shall enter therein. 


With shouting and singing, 
And jubilant ringing, 
Their arms of rebellion cast down ; 
At last every nation 
The Lord of salvation 
Its King and Redeemer shall crown. 


The Kingdom is coming, O tell ye the story, 
God’s banner exalted shall be! 

The earth shall be full of his knowledge and glory, 
As waters that cover the sea. 


THE CALL FOR REAPERS. 


Far and near the fields are teeming, 
With the sheaves of ripened grain ; 

Far and near their gold is gleaming, 
O’er the sunny slope and plain. 


Lord of Harvest, send forth reapers ! 
Hear us, Lord, to Thee we cry ; 
Send them now, the sheaves to gather, 
Ere the harvest time pass by. 


Send them forth with morn’s first beaming, 
Send them in the noontide’s glare ; 
When the sun’s last rays are gleaming, 
Bid them gather everywhere. 


Oh thou, whom thy Lord is sending, 
Gather now the sheaves of gold, 

Heavenward then at evening wending 
Thou shalt come with joy untold. 


88 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


THE WORLD IS GROWING BETTER. 


The world is growing better, 
No matter what they say ; 

The light is shining brighter 
In one refulgent ray; 

And tho’ deceivers murmur, 
And turn another way, 

Yet still the world grows better, 
And better every day. 


We mark the steady foot- falls, 
We hear the tramping host, 
The lines deploying widely, 
Encompass all the lost; 
And while the gospel banner 
Floats over all the way, 
We'll shout, the world grows better, 
And better every day. 


The Bible cause and missions, 
The Church and Sunday-school, 
The steady flow of money, 
To keep the coffers full, 
While thousands of young converts. 
Rejoice and sing and pray, 
We know the world grows better, 
And better every day. 


O for an inspiration, 

To thrill the mighty throng, 
A bugle note of triumph, 

A gospel wave of song, 
A deeper obligation 

Toward what we ought to pay, 
And give to God the glory, 

Far better every day. 


LSO SND o RAY O U7 


The night lies dark upon the earth, and we have light; 
So many have to grope their way, and we have sight ; 
One path is theirs and ours —of sin and care, 

But we are borne along, and they their burdens bear. 
‘Foot-sore, heart-weary, faint they on their way, 

Mute in their sorrow, while we kneel and pray ; 

Glad are they of a stone on which to rest, 

While we lie pillowed on the Father’s breast. 


Father, why is it that these children roam, 

And I with thee, so glad, at rest, at home ? 

Is it enough to keep the door ajar, 

In hope that some may see the gleam afar 

And guess that that is home, and urge their way 
To reach it, haply, somehow and some day ? 
May not I go and lend them of my light? 

May not mine eyes be unto them for sight? 

May not the brother-love thy love portray ? 

And news of home make home less far away? 


MISSIONARY. THOUGHTS IN POETRY. 89 


Yea, Christ hath said that as from thee he came 

To seek and save, so hath He, in his name, 

Sent us to these; and, Father, we would go, 

Glad in thy love that thou hast willed it so 

That we should be partakers in the joy 

Which even on earth knows naught of earth’s alloy— 
The joy which grows as others’ griefs grow less, 

And sould not live but for its power to bless. 


“IT IS MORE BLESSED.” 


Give ! as the morning that flows out of heaven ; 
Give! asthe waves when their channel is riven ; 
Give! as the free air and sunshire are give ; 
Lavishly, utterly, joyfully given ; 
Not the waste drops of thy cup overflowing ; 
Not the faint sparks of thy hearth ever glowing ; 
Not a pale bud from the June roses blowing ; 
Give as He gave thee who gave thee to live. 


Pour out thy love like the rush of a river, 
Wasting its waters for ever and ever. 
Through the burnt sands that reward not the giver ; 
Silent or songful, thou nearest the sea. 
Scatter thy life as the summer’s shower pouring ; 
What if no bird through the pearl rain is soaring ? 
What if no blossom looks upward adoring ? 
Look to the life that was lavished for thee ! 


So the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses ; 

Evil and thankless the desert it blesses ; 

Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses ; 
Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. 

What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses? 

What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes ? 

Sweeter is music with minor-keyed closes, 


Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling. * 


Almost the day of thy giving is over ; 
Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover, 
Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover : 
What shall thy longing avail in the grave? 
Give as the heart gives whose fetters are breaking,— 
Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking ; 
Soon heaven’s river thy soul-fever slaking, 
Thou shalt know God, and the gift that he gave. 


90 


THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


YOUR OWN. 


What if your own were starving, 
Fainting with famine pain, 

And yet you knew where golden grew 
Rich fields and ripened grain ? 

Would you hear their wail as a thrice-told tale, 
And turn to your feast again ? 


What if your own were thirsting, 
And never a drop could gain, 

And you could tell where a sparkling well 
Poured forth melodious rain ? 

Would you turn aside while they gasped and died, 
And leave them to their pain ? 


What if your own were darkened, 
Without one cheering ray, 

And you alone could show where shone 
The pure, sweet light of day ? 

Would you leave them there, in their dark despair, 
And sing on your sun-lit way ? 


What if your own were wandering 
Far in a trackless maze, 

Aad you could show them where to go 
Along your pleasant ways? 

Would your heart be light till the pathway right 
Was plain before their gaze ? 


What if your own were prisoned 
Far in a hostile land, 

And the only key to set them free 
Held in your safe command ? 

Would you breathe free air while they stifled there, 
And wait, and hold your hand ? 


“Yet what else are we doing, 


Dear ones by Christ made free. 
If we’ll not tell what we know so well 
4 To those across the sea, 
Who have never heard one tender word 
Of the Lamb of Calvary? 


‘“They’re not our own,’’ you answer ; 


‘‘They’re neither kith nor kin.” 
They are Goa’s own, his love alone 
Can save them from their sin ; 
They are Chris?’s own, he left his throne 
And died, their souls to win. 


MISSIONARY THOUGHTS [N POETRY. 91 


THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD FOR JESUS. 


The whole wide world for Jesus! 
Once more, before we part, 

Ring out the joyful watchword 
From every grateful heart. 

The whole wide world for Jesus! 
Be this our battle cry, 

The lifted Cross our oriflamme, 
A sign to conquer by! 


The whole wide world for Jesus! 
From out the Golden Gate, 
Through all Pacific’s sunny isles, 
To China’s princely state ; 
From India’s vales and mountains, 
Through Persia’s land of bloom, 
To storied Palestina, 
i And Afric’s deserc bloom. 


The whole wide world for Jesus, - 
Through all its fragrant zones ! 
Ring out again the watchword, 
In loftiest, gladdest tones. 
The whole wide world for Jesus ! 
We’ll sing the song with prayer, 
And link the prayer with labor, 
Till Christ his crown shall wear. 


THE GREAT FAMINE-CRY. 


[Tell your people how fast we are dying; and ask tf they cannot 
send the gospel a little faster.”’| Words of a heathen woman. 


Hark ! the wail of heathen nations ; 
List! the cry comes back again, 

With its solemn, sad reproaching, 
With its piteous refrain : 

‘““We are dying fast of hunger, 

Starving for the Bread of Life! 

Haste, O hasten ! ere we perish, 
Send the messengers of life ! 


“Send the gospel faster, swifter, 

Ye who dwell in Christian lands; 
Reck ye not we’re dying, dying, 

More in numbers than the sands! 
Heed ye not His words—your Master— 

‘Go ye forth to all the world?’ 
Send the gospel faster, faster— 

Let its banner be unfurled!” 


92 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


Christian! can you sit in silence, 
While this cry fills all the air, 
Or content yourself with giving 
Merely what you well ‘‘can spare?”’ 
Will you make your God a beggar 
When he asks but for “‘ his own?”’ 
Will you dole him from your treasure, 
A poor pittance as a loan? 


Shame, oh shame! for very blushing, 
E’en the sun might veil his face: 
‘Robbing God’’—ay—of his honor, 
While presuming on his grace ! 
Keeping back his richest blessing 
By withholding half the ‘‘ price ”’ 
Consecrated to his service ; 
Perjured, perjured, perjured thrice! 


While you dwell in peace and plenty, 
‘Store and basket” running o’er 

Will you cast to these poor pleaders 
Only crumbs upon your floor? 

Can you sleep upon your pillow 
With a heart and soul at rest, 

While upon the treacherous billow, 
Souls you might have saved are lost? 


Hear ye now the tramp of nations 
Marching on to Day of Doom? 

See them falling, dropping swiftly, 
Like the leaves, into the tomb ; 
Souls for whom Christ died, are dying, 

While the ceaseless tramp goes by ; 
Can you shut your ears, O Christian, 
To their ceaseless moan and cry? 


Hearken! Hush your own heart-beating, 

While the death-march passes by— 
- Tramp, tramp, tramp! the beat of nations, 

Never ceasing—yet they die— 

Die unheeded, while you slumber, 
Millions strewing all the way ; 

Victims of your sloth and ‘“‘selfness’’— - 
Ay, of mine, and thine, to-day ! 


When the Master comes to meet us, 
For this loss, what will He say? 
“‘T was hungered, did ye feed me? 
Iasked bread ; ye turned away ! 
' Iwas dying in my prison, 
Ye ne’er came to visit Me!”’ 
And swift witnesses those victims, 
Standing by will surely be. 


MISSIONARY THOUGHTS IN POETRY. 93. 


Sound the trumpet ! wake God’s people ! 
““Walks’”’ not Christ amid his flock ! 
Sits He not ‘‘against the Treasury !”’ 
Shall he stand without and knock— 
Knock in vain to come and feast us? 
Open, open, hearts and hands! 
And as surely his best blessings 
Shall o’erflow all hearts, all lands. 


XVI. Praying for Missions. 


WHOEVER has been at a farewell missionary meeting, 
where consecrated men and women about to set sail for distant 
lands were bidding good-bye to country and friends, must have 
been impressed by the earnestness and persistence with which 
the departing ones begged that much prayer might be offered 
in their behalf. And whoever, with heart drawn out in this 
direction, has been a constant attendant at the home churches 
must have been equally impressed by the strange habitual 
silence concerning the matter on the part of both pastors and 
people. Nothing carries more convincing proof of the little 
hold this theme has yet secured on the souls of Christ’s mod- 
ern disciples than the slight, infrequent mention of it at the 
throne of grace. Hven in so-called ‘‘concerts of prayer’’ for 
missions it is often extremely difficult to secure two or three 
genuine supplications kept with some degree of definiteness to 
the subject in hand. 

This is no small defect. It is an appalling fact. The Mis- 
sionary Secretaries in a recent circular well say, ‘‘Our chief 
need is prayer.’’. Dr. A. T. Pierson, in a late number of Zhe 
Missionary Review, writes: ‘‘With full consciousness that no 
other editorial may ever issne from the pen and hand which 
write these lines, we here record the profound conviction that, 
back of all other causes of the present perplexity in our mis- 
sion work; behind all the apathy of individuals and the inac- 
tivity of churches; behind all the lack of enthusiasm and the 
lack of funds; behind all the deficiency of men and of means, 
of intelligence and of consecration, of readiness to sezd and 
alacrity in gozmg, there lies one lack deeper and more radical 
and more fundamental—viz., THE LACK . OF BELIEVING 
PRAYER.”’ 

There must then, positively mwzst, be more praying for mis- 
sions, in the closet, in the social gathering, and in the pulpit. 
Few pastors appreciate how much they might do for missions 
simply by the indirect influence of their public prayers at the 
stated Sabbath services. If this theme is regularly, or at least 
frequently introduced, not with a mere cursory formal refer- 
ence but in earnest, heart-felt petitions, the people who listen 
and unite with such leadership will insensibly catch its spirit, 
and their own habits of supplication will be gradually shaped 
in the iame direction. More can sometimes be accomplished 
in this manner than by the formal discourses against which it 
is easier for prejudice to arm itself. And each minister, how- 

94 


PRAYING FOR MISSIONS. 95 


ever small the sphere he seems to be filling, may in this way 
stretch his arms around the globe, and, like the great founder 
of Methodism, make the world his parish. 

To argue that prayer is a genuine power, and not a mere 
formality with some retroactive effect, is certainly superfluous 
here. Buta few out of many instances of its mighty results 
in the particular direction now under survey may not unfitting- 
ly be mentioned to stimulate our lagging faith. From Dr. 
A.C. Thompson’s ‘‘Lectures on Foreign Missions’? we cull 
and condense the following :— 

Dr. C. H. Wheeler, President of Euphrates College at 
Harpoot, writes, ‘‘I have an abiding conviction that much of 
the wonderful success of the Harpoot work is due to the sup- 
plications of persons in the homie field.”’ 

A missionary of the American Board among the Mahrattas 
in India tells of a wonderful revival that broke out there on 
the first Monday in January, 1833. He could only account 
for it on the supposition that the Christian friends in America 
must be praying for them. And sure enough it turned out 
that, unknown to him, many bodies of Christians in America 
had appointed that day as one of fasting and prayer for the 
heathen world. 

A missionary of the Gossner Society in Java, Mr. Micha- 
elis, wrote to his brother-in-law at home, the Rev. Gottlob 
Heinrich, detailing the many and great hindrances to the 
work. Mr. Heinrich gathered a little company together and 
made the matter a subject of special supplication. After 
awhile came another letter saying that a revival had broken 
out among the natives, and, giving the date of the first indica- 
tion of the change, he asked, ‘‘Did you not on that evening 
pray expressly for my work?’’ ‘The date proved to be the 
very one on which the company had gathered. 

The Rev. Dr. James L. Phillips, of the Free Baptist Mission, 
Orissa, India, gives in 7he MWisstonary Review for September, 
1888, an incident very similiar to the last. On the 6th of 
March, 1887, the concert topic in many home churches was 
New Fields, and particular mention was made of a little 
station recently opened amid very serious obstacles on the 
Orissa coast. The missionary there in charge wrote to an 
American friend about the middle of the same month, ‘‘On the 
6th and 7th of March I received a special outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit. Such courage I have never felt in my work, and 
all the native Christians felt more or less the same spirit of 
consecration. The following Sabbath I baptized six, and 
there are a number seeking Christ. The Spirit of the Lord 
goes before us everywhere, and we are all amazed at the won- 
derful way in which the people are accepting the gospel.’’ By 


96 THE PASTOR S*UISSIONAR Fe AN OAL, 


the slow course of the ocean mail that brother learned on the 
3d of April from a Boston paper dated Feb. 24th, that the mis- 
sionary concert of March 6th was to make him and his field 
the special subject of prayer. Then it flashed upon him that 
here was the full explanation of what they had been receiving. 

More prayer for missions, of the kind that moves the arm 
that moves the world, there should certainly be. It is well to 
have a map to pray by, and take up the countries and stations 
in order. It is especially well to pray for the laborers by 
name, particularly when anything fresh has been learned 
concerning them or interest in them has been newly aroused. 

As a help to definite supplication and intelligent petition- 
ing, perhaps some who have not given careful study to the 
matter may welcome the following suggestive subjects : 

That the missionary may have wisdom, patience, love, and 
tact in presenting the truth to the ignorant, prejudiced minds 
of his hearers in the bazars, villages and fairs. 

That the native preachers may be faithful, zealous, and 
eminently successful in winning their countrymen to Christ. 

That the inquirers may have courage to come out boldly in 
the open confession of the Saviour, and endure joyfully the 
spoiling of their goods. 

That there may be seen on the part of SAeLers genuine con- 
viction of sin and manifest proofs of the Spirit’s work. 

That the native Christians may be moved by a mighty im- 
pulse to bring each one his brother to Jesus, and may be 
strengthened so to live that the heathen around may be im- 
pressed by the manifest change for the better. 

That the Bible, wherever sold or distributed, may be 
illumined by the Holy Ghost, and be the nucleus for groups 
of believers. 

That those engaged in preparing, printing and circulating 
papers, tracts, and other Christian literature, may be divinely 
guided and see much fruit. 

That teachers in colleges and schools may be able to lead 
their students to a love of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

That God would raise up able evangelists to do for heathen 
lands something such a work as Wesley and Whitefield did 
for England. 

That the hearts of kings and others in high places of author- 
ity may be touched, and their great influence turned on the 
side of the Lord. 

That the women who go to the Zenanas may be able to 
arouse an interest in the true salvation among those so long 
debased with frivolous superstitions. 

That the hospitals may more than ever be made mighty 
auxiliaries in breaking down opposition and preparing the way 
for the gospel. 





PRAYING FOR MISSIONS. oy 


That the orphanages may be very tenderly watched over 
by the God of the fatherless, and may turn out many useful 
laborers. 

That Christian villages may be: examples of everything 
good to the surrounding towns among which they are set as a 
city on a hill. 

That the Sunday-school agency may be still more wonder- 
fully owned of God in turning the minds and hearts of hundreds 
of thousands of the children and youth of non-Christian lands 
to Christ. 

That God would send forth laborers into his harvest. 

That the vast wealth of the present day locked up in nom- 
inally Christian coffers might be set free to bless the earth. 

That young men and women debating the question of a 
' missionary vocation might be led to a right decision. 

That missionary secretaries and editors may have all the 
strength and wisdom their important and difficult’ positions 
require. 

That missionaries on sick leave may speedily recover their 
health so as to be able to return to their fields. 

That missionaries’ children, providentially separated from 
parental supervision, may have special divine watchful care, 
and receive training for large usefulness in mission fields or 
elsewhere. 

That the Governments of the earth may be restrained from 
putting obstacles in the way of mission work, and that the 
time may speedily come when there shall be perfect liberty of 
opinion and public worship. 

That white men may cease to oppress the black and colored 
races, and in particular some way be found to stay the ravages 
of rum among the defenceless children of nature. 

That the slave trade may soon become a thing of the past, 
and that all intercourse, commercial or political, of nominal 
Christians with those of other religions may impress them with 
the superiority of our faith. 


XVII. Reading Abcut Missions. 


In order to think and feel and speak and pray about mis- 
sions in the most effective manner no little reading about them 
must be mixedin. And the time has long passed when there 
was any deficiency of attractive reading matter. In Zhe Gos- 
pel in All Lands for February, 1888, the full titles of a clas- 
sified missionary library of something like a thousand volumes 
were printed. In the first volume of the Jondon Mission- 
ary Conference report, issued near the close of the same 
year, nearly two thousand titles of missionary books are given. 
And in the excellent Excyclopedia of Missions, just published ° 
by Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, not far from seven thousand 
titles are noted. Nor is either of these lists by any means 
exhaustive. 

But, of course, to the ordinary pastor such ‘lists are of little 
use, on account of his limitations in regard to both time and 
money. He would like, perhaps, a few suggestions about a 
carefully selected number of books that would come within 
the range of his purse, and for whose perusal a place might 
be found in his busy life. There is also sometimes an inquiry 
respecting a definite course of study in missions for those who 
wish to go into the matter more thoroughly. To meet the 
latter need we offer the following, not as an ideal list impos- 
sible of improvement, but as a suggestive summary to show 
the main lines deserving to be considered, and some at least of 
the works under each head that best merit attention : 


I. “THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MISSIONS. 


Dr. John Harris’s ‘‘’The Great Commission.’’ Boston, 
1842. 

Dr. Rufus Anderson’s ‘‘ Foreign Missions, their Rela- 
tions and Claims,’’ New York, 1869. 

Dr. J. H. Seelye’s ‘‘ Christian Missions.”? New York, 


1875. 
Rev. W. F. Bainbridge’s ‘‘ Around the World Tour of 
Christian Missions.’’ Boston, 1882. 


Dr. Gustav Waeneck’s‘‘ Modern Missions and Culture.’’ 
Edinburgh, 1883. 
Dr. A. T’. Pierson’s ‘‘ Crisis of Missions.’’ New York, 
’ 1886. 
Bishop J. M. Thoburn’s ‘‘ Missionary Addresses.’’ New 
York, 1888. 
98 


READING ABOUT MISSIONS. 99 


II. History oF MISSIONS. 
a. General. 


Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn’s ‘‘ Conflict of Christianity with 
Heathenism.’’ New York, 1879. 

Dr. Alfred Plummer’s ‘‘Church of the Early Fathers. 
‘External History.’? New York, 1888. 

Dr. G. F. Maclear’s ‘‘ History of Christian Missions in 
the Middle Ages.’’ Jondon, 1861. 

Dr. Fleming Stevenson’s ‘‘ Dawn of the Modern Mis- 
sion.’’ New York, 1888. 

Dr. Theo. Christlieb’s ‘‘ Protestant Foreign Missions.’ 
Boston, 1880. 

Dr. G. Warneck’s ‘‘ History of Protestant Missions.’’ 
Edinburgh, 1884. 


b. Special. 


Dr. J. M. Reid’s ‘‘ Missions and Missionary Society of 
the ME EH.» Church,’” New York, 1870. 

Rev. W. Moister’s ‘‘ History of Wesleyan Missions.’’ 
London, 1871. 

Dr. R. Anderson’s ‘‘ Missions of the American Board.’’ 
Four vols. Boston, 1872-75. 

Iheve dt-uWe Ducker’s ““The English Church in Other 
Lands.’’ New York, 1888. 

Dr. A. C. Thompson’s ‘‘ Moravian Missions.’’ New 
VOD we Loos. 

Dr. M. A. Sherring’s ‘‘ Protestant Missions in India.’’ 
London, 1875. 

Francis Parkman’s ‘‘ Jesuits in North America.’’ Boston, 
1872. 


III. Non-CHRISTIAN FAITHS. 


Archdeacon Hardwick’s ‘‘ Christ and Other Masters.’’ 
London, 1863. 

Dr. J. F. Clarke’s ‘““Ten Great Religions.’’ Boston, 1872. 

Dr. J. M. Reid’s ‘‘ Doomed Religions.’’ New York, 1884. 

Dr. Fradenburg’s ‘‘ Living Religions.’’ New York, 1886. 

Rev ay auchan’s “ Theelrident, the Crescent, and the 
Cross.’’ London. 

Rev. H. C. DuBose’s ‘‘ The Dragon, Image, and Demon.”’ 
London. 

Rev. M. Dodd’s ‘‘Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ.’’ Lon- 
don, 1877. 

Sir Monier Monier-Williams’ ‘‘Buddhism in its Connec- 
tion with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in its Contrast with 
Christianity.’’ London and New York, 1889. 


100 THE PASTORS MISSTONAKRYAUIANUAL. 


Monier-Williams’ ‘‘ Hinduism.” —) 
T.W. Rhys David’s ‘‘Buddhism.’’ SS. PVCSKe outa 


R, H.. Douglass * Contucianisni: ‘and 
J. Ws Stobart.s." stan” New York, 1880. 
Sir W. Muir’s ‘‘ The Koran.”’ J 


IV. THE GREAT MISSION FIELDS. 


Dr. S. Wells Williams’ “The Middle Kingdom.’’ New 


York side. 
Dr. W. E. Griffis’ ‘‘’ The Mikado’s Empire.’’ New York, 
1882. 


P. Lowell’s ‘‘ Chosen, the rips of the Morning Calm.’’ 
Boston, 1886. 

J. T. Wheeler’s ‘‘India Under: British Rule.’’ London, 
1886. 


V. MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHY. . 


‘‘ Missionary Heroes and Martyrs.’’ Hartford, 1852. 

‘* Master -Missionaries.’”’ By A. HH. Japp... Newsome 
1881. 

‘‘ Missionary Life of Xavier.’’ By Henry Venn. London, 
1862. 
‘*My Missionary Apprenticeship. ” By J. Me Thobunae 
New York, 1886. 

“ Among the Turks.’’ By Cyrus Hamlin. New York, 
1878: 

‘“Among the Mongols,’’ By James Gilmour. New York, 
1883. 

Lives of Adoniram Judson, John Coleridge Patteson, 
Henry Martyn, David Brainerd, William Carey, Alexander 
Duff, John G. Paton, James Chalmers, John Calvert, Robert 
Moffatt. | 





VI. MISSIONARY CONFERENCE REPORTS. 


London, 1888; Mildmay, 1878; Liverpool, 1860; Cal- 
cutta, 1882; Bangalore, 1879; Allahabad, 1872; Shanghai, 
1877 and 1890. 


VII. MISSIONARY PERIODICALS. 


The Gospel in All Lands. New York. 

The Missionary Review of the World. New York. 

Annual Reports of the Missionary Societies. 

Missionary Year Book, vol. 1, 1889. London and New 
York. 


READING ALOOGCT MISSIONS. 101 


VIII. MIssIONARY CYCLOPADIAS. 


The Encyclopzedia of Missions. New York, 1801. 
Conquests of the Cross. London, I8gqr. 


There are many other books of a more composite charac- 
ter, not easily classified in any of the above lists, but intensely 
interesting, like Dr. William Butler’s ‘‘ Land of the Veda’’ 
and ‘‘From Boston to Bareilly ;’’ Rev. E. R. Young’s ‘‘ By 
Canoe and Dog Train;’’ Rev. C. H. Wheeler’s ‘‘’Ten Years 
on the Euphrates ;’’. volumes of travel, adventure and descrip- 
tion every way suitable for the Sunday-school lhbrary or 
the family circle. 

We would call special attention to Dr. John Robson’s 
‘‘Outlines of Protestant Missions’’ in the series of Bible Class 
Primers now issuing by T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, as a 
cheap, compact, convenient presentation of the main points in 
the history of the movement. The Rev. John Liggins’ 
‘“Great Value and Success of Foreign Missions,’’ and the Rev. 
Josiah Strong’s ‘‘Our Country’? (both in paper covers), 
are also to be highly commended. There is a cheap edition 
also (in paper covers) of Pierson’s ‘‘ Crisis of Mlissions.’’ 
These four can be procured for about a dollar, and would give 
any person no mean furnishing for more than one rousing mis- 
sionary address. 

Though one may not be able to read with any complete- 
ness the current numbers of the periodicals above mentioned, 
it is of the highest importance to file them away for reference 
and for use in the monthly concerts. ‘They are an invaluable 
repository of fact and thought ; a cyclopeedia on an extended 
scale. The Missionary Conference Reports—of which only 
the London is readily procurable in this country—furnish the 
best collection of essays and discussions by experts on practi- 
cal missionary themes. Lectures of great value on Compara- 
tive Religions are being delivered at Boston University by 
President: William F. Warren, at the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- 
sity by Dr. J. IT. Gracey, and at the New York University by 
Di Hee. Milinwood ibut.in neither. case, have: they as,-yet 
been published. 

Missionary tracts in large variety can be procured at small 
expense—some of them gratuitously—from our Mission Rooms, 
150, Fifth avenue, New York. Their judicious sale or dis- 
tribution, after careful perusal, should by no means be 
neglected. 





XVIII. Heart Throbs of Missionary Heroes. 


Not the least among the benefits which the Missionary 
enterprise has conferred upon the Church has been its afford- 
ing an unstinted supply of the most inspiring examples of 
Christian devotion. What used to be said a generation ago as 
to eloquence being dog-cheap at the anti-slavery meetings, 
might well be applied perennially to heroism and self-sacrifice 
in mission fields. So close an affinity exists between them 
that-we expect to see them joined asa matter of course. Nor 
are we often disappointed. There is not so much opportunity 
for the display of heroism in these more peaceable modern 
times as in the primitive pioneer periods ; but.that it plenti- 
fully exists just the same, and is forthcoming whenever 
called for, there can be no question. We hold that the mis- 
sionaries of the Cross, the host of those who in all lands have 
counted not their lives dear unto them that they might ac- 
‘complish the work for which Jesus died, are by far the grand- 
est body of men and women that this world has ever seen. 
The Church has no choicer legacy than the lives they have 
left. She has no richer privilege than that of communion 
with their deathless spirits. There is no higher type of man- 
hood and womanhood than that which they present. Surely 
they best reproduce the very life of Jesus, for they give them- 
selves in behalf of those bound to them by no other tie than 
that of broad humanity. They best exhibit the highest de- 
velopments of faith and hope and love; for, without these 
qualities, they never could stand the strain they do. ‘Toiling 
for years without fruit, daring great dangers undismayed, un- 
deterred by appalling obstacles, gladly welcoming pain, and 
shame, and earthly loss, they afford us new views of the power 
of God’s grace and bequeath to us examples that stir our 
souls as with a trumpet-call. As we contemplate what they 
have done and dared for our common Lord; as we note the 
thoroughness of their consecration, not in word only, but in 
deed; as we perceive the completeness of their loyalty, the 
intensity of their longing to fulfil the desires dearest to the 
Saviour’s heart, shame for the paltry littleness of our labors 
and the imperfection of our service kindles upon our cheeks. 
Instinctively we cry out, Noble men, may we be worthy to 
unloose the latchet of your shoes; may we follow on up the 
path of brightness; may the fragrance and the radiance of 
your lives yet linger, till we catch sight of you hard by the 
throne of the all-conquering Christ |! 

102 


(iia iuer tae Gl Ole IIS SLONARY JIE ROLES. 103 


Are these words too fervent? Others at least, well quali- 
fied to judge, have spoken or written similarly. Dr. R. N. 
Cast of England, a retired British-Indian civilian, thoroughly 
conversant with the Christian workers of that great empire, 
says, ‘‘The missionary appears to me to be the highest type 
of human excellence in the nineteenth century, and his pro- 
fession to be the noblest. He has the enterprise of the mer- 
chant, without the narrow desire of gain ; the dauntlessness 
of the soldier, without the necessity of shedding blood; the 
zeal of the geographical explorer, but for a higher motive 
than science.’’ 

Col. Charles Denby, late American Minister to China, in 
a letter to Gen. Shackleford of Evansville, Indiana, dated 
Peking, March 20, 1886, and also one to Dr. Ellinwood, writes, 
‘‘T have made it my business to visit every mission in the 
open ports of China. This inspection has satisfied me that 
the missionaries deserve all possible respect, encouragement 
and consideration. I find no fault with them, except exces- 
sive zeal. Civilization owes them a vast debt. Leaving all 
religious questions out of consideration, humanity must honor 
a class which, for no pay, or very inadequate pay, devotes 
itself to charity and philanthropy. They have remarkable 
learning, intelligence and courage. It is perhaps a fault that 
they make no effort to attract attention—fight no selfish bat- 
tle. They are honest, pious, sincere, industrious, and trained 
for their work by the most arduous study. I can tell the real 
from the false. These men and women are heroes and 
heroines, as truly as Grant or Sheridan, Nelson or Farragut.”’ 

The missionaries in the Turkish empire have made an 
equally good impression on those that have most closely ob- 
served them. ‘The American Ministers to the Sublime Porte, 
such as Gen. Lew Wallace, the Hon. Geo. P. Marsh, the Hon. 
EK. F. Noyes, have said, ‘‘ The salutary influence of Ameri- 
can missionaries and teachers in the Turkish empire cannot 
possibly be overrated ;’ ‘‘If anywhere on the face of this 
earth there exists a band of devout Christian men and women 
it is there ;’’ ‘‘I take special pleasure in bearing testimony to 
their eminent piety, zeal, learning and ability.”’ The Earl of 
Shaftesbury, speaking of them in 1860, said, ‘‘I do not be- 
lieve that in the history of diplomacy, or in the history of any 
negotiation carried on between man and man, we can find any- 
thing to equal the wisdom, the soundness, and the pure, evan- 
gelical truth of the men who constitute the American mission. 
They are a marvellous combination of common sense and 
piety’ For a few further testimonies see the concluding 
pages of this book. 


104 THE “PASTOR'S MISSIONARY UAW Coa 


But since men’s characters appear more adequately and 
vividly in the words.they themselves say, rather than in what 
is said about them, we propose to let a few of these heroes 
speak. An unstudied sentence or two of their own, 
warm with heart’s blood, wili show their fine quality, will 
test their fibre. Be it well remembered, however, that many 
of the very best have left no such utterances for quotation, 
and that these which follow are merely stray specimens gath- 
ered here and there in missionary biography, a handful of 
samples from the fire-touched lips of those that one day shall 
gather in the innermost circle round the throne. 

William Carey, more than any one man the inaugurator 
of the modern missionary enterprise, summarized the great 
sermon which he preached at Nottingham, May, 1792, from 
Isaiah liv. 2, in the words, ‘‘ Expect great things from God, 
attempt great things for God,’’ and they became the motto of 
the movement. And when that wonderful career was closing, 
after he had not only attempted but accomplished great things 
for God in forty years on the soil of India, leaving the Bible 
translated into forty languages for his monument, we hear him 
ery on his dying bed, ‘‘I have not a single desire unsatisfied,’’ 
and we read on his tomb stone in the little mission cemetery at 
Serampore the thrilling, self-abjuring lines, ‘‘ A wretched, 
poor and helpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall.’’ 

Count Zinzendorf, that genuinely great man, administra- 
tor, statesman, poet, preacher, noble not simply by birth but 
by character, declared in his sermon at Herrnhut, about 1732, 
‘*T have but one passion, it is He, only He.’’ And his whole 
life bore witness to the truth of the assertion. On his heart 
lay day and night the desire that all the ends of the earth 
might see the salvation of God. His high station was ever 
made subservient to the lowliest labors, his large wealth was 
lavishly expended in the promotion of God’s cause, and his 
great abilities, with unwearied energy and most self-denying 
faithfulness were placed always at the disposal of the Redeemer. 
He adopted for his motto ‘‘ Eternitati,’’ and certainly it was 
for eternity and his fellowmen that he lived. One of his 
sayings was, ‘‘I considerthat country my home which is most 
in need of the Gospel.’’ 

Robert Morrison was the first Protestant missionary to 
China, 1806. The ship-owner at New York, in whose vessel 
he embarked, after settling for his passage, turned from his 
desk and said with sarcastic expression, ‘‘ And so, Mr. Mor- 
rison, you really expect that you will make an impression on 
the idolatry of the great Chinese empire ?”’ 

‘“No, sir,’’ replied the missionary, with characteristic firm- 
ness, ‘‘ Texpect God will.”’ 


HEART THROBS OF MISSIONARY HEROES. 105 


_ “Look up! look up!’ were the words oftenest on the lips 
of this much-enduring man who saw so little to cheer him in 
other directions. He looked ever up to God and was not dis- 


appointed. . 
Adoniram Judson sent home from Burmah, in 1816, to 
friends in America, the soul-stirring words, ‘‘Do you ask 


what prospect of my success there is? JI reply, as muchas 
there is in an almighty and faithful God who will perform 
his promises.’? Unspeakable were his sufferings, untir- 
ing his toils; but none of these things moved him. He wrote 
on the fly-leaf of his Burinan Bible: 
“In spite of sorrow, grief, and pain, 
Our course be onward still; 
We sow on Burmah’s barren plain, 
We reap on Zion’s hill.” 

Robert Moffatt, and Mary his true helpmeet, were mission- 
aries in South Africa over fifty years. For the first ten years 
they labored among the Bechuanas, whose obstinacy and stu- 
pidity seemed impregnable. Yet it was at that very time that 
Mary Moffatt, asked by an English friend as to what would 
be of the most service to her, had the faith to reply, ‘‘ Send 
us a communion service: we shall want it some day.’’ And 
on the day preceding their first communion with native con- 
verts three years afterward, the service arrived. Robert’s 
similar spirit is shown in his exclamation, ‘‘O that I had a 
thousand lives and a thousand bodies! all of them should be 
employed to preach Christ to this degraded and despised yet 
beloved people.’’ _ Reviewing the more than half a century of 
toil and privation, he says, ‘‘I never complained ; I never felt 
amurmur. It wasa glorious work. It was doing the will of 
God; and had I perished beneath it I should have lost 
- nothing and gained everything.”’ 

David Livingstone married Robert Moffat’s daughter. 
Though his sufferings and dangers were oftentimes extreme 
he was never weary of praising God that he had been chosen 
for so noble and sacred a calling. ‘‘People talk,’’ he said, ‘‘of 
tne sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in 
Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid 
back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God? Is 
that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful 
activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and 
a bright hope of a gloricus destiny hereafter? Away with the 
word. It is eniphatically no sacrifice. Say, rather, it is a 
privilege. JI never madé a sacrifice. All these things are 
nothing when compared with the glory which shall be re- 
vealed.’’ He went to South Africa in 1840 at the age of 23. 
He died on his knees at Tala, near Lake Bangwesio, in May, 


106 THE PASTORS: MISSIONARY MAN GAL. 


1873, after forty attacks of fever, crying, ‘‘Be he American, 
Englishman, or Turk, who helps to heal the open sore of the 
world, I pray that God’s choicest blessings may rest upon him.’’ 
His noble example of unflagging zeal, persevering energy, 
Christian heroism and love has stimulated very many; and 
when that ‘‘open sore,’’ the slave trade, is healed, asit will be ; 
when that great continent is fully opened up to civilization, 
and through its dark dens of ignorance and sin the blessings. 
that flow from the peaceful reign of Christ are spread, no one 
will have done more to bring about that happy day than this 
frank, simple, manly Christianexplorer. ‘The earnestness and 
the motive of his whole career are well epitomized and explained 
in his»well-known declaration, ‘“Nothing earthly will make me 
give up my work in despair; I encourage myself in the Lord 
my God and go forward;’’ and also in the touching entry in 
his journal on the last birthday but one of his splendid life, 
‘““My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All, I again dedicate my 
whole self to Thee.”’ 

Captain Allen Gardiner, with six companions, died of starv- 
ation in Terra del Fuego in 1850, after a desperate attempt to 
introduce Christianity among a people that had been called the 
most degraded on the face of the earth. But the last journals, 
subsequently found, breathe nothing but praise and hope. He 
declares that he would not exchange situations with any man | 
living and implores that the mission be not abandoned. ‘The 
following are some of the expressions used: ‘‘Asleep or awake, 
I am happy beyond the power of description.’’ ‘‘Poor, weak, 
though we are, our abode is a very Bethel to our souls, for we 
feel and know that God is here.’’ ‘‘Great and marvelous are 
the loving-kindnesses of my gracious God to measinner. I 
neither hunger nor thirst though five days without food. Yet 
a little while and through grace we may join that blessed 
throng to sing the praises of Christ to all eternity.’’ And thus 
he went up to glory. 

William G, Crocker, a Baptist missionary in Africa, 1837, 
after the very severe blow which the mission had suffered by 
the deaths, within two weeks of each other, of Mr. and Mrs. 
Fielding, his associates, writes, ‘‘This event may discourage 
our friends at home, but it does not discourage us. ‘Till we 
have evidence that the Lord has forsaken us we will not be 
disheartened.’’ 

James Richards, one of the founders of the American 
Board and of its mission in Ceylon, sailed for that country 
Oct...2ard, 1815: When asked how he could tefrainsirom 
weeping at separation from friends and country he answered, 
‘Why should I weep? I had been waiting with anxiety almost 
eight years for the opportunity to go and preach Christ among 





HEART THROBS OF MISSIONARY HEROES. 107 


the heathen; I had often wept at the long delay; but the day 
on which I bade farewell to my native land was the happiest 
day of my life.’’ 

Dr. Asahel Grant, also of the American Board, who did 
such glorious work in the mountains of Koordistan, and died 
of fever at Mosul, April 24th, 1844, gave utterance to these 
burning words: ‘‘I stand ready to go in the face of danger and 
death to any part of the world under the dominion of the 
prince of the powers of darkness. What though I tear myself 
away from all the endearments of home, wear out life amid 
toil and suffering, and find a grave among strangers! Only 
let me be the means of salvation to some lost sinner who shali 
meet me in heaven, and I shall bless God for it to all eternity.”’ 
It was of this missionary that Dr. Rufus Anderson wrote, ‘‘His 
courage, his calmness, and yet firmness of purpose, his skill in 
the healing art, his devotion to the cause of his Saviour, his 
tact in winning the confidence of those who never before 
trusted their own friends, his fearlessness in the presence of 
unscrupulous and cruel men, and his ascendency over them, 
his lively faith under appalling discouragements, and his un- 
yielding perseverance, form an array of excellences rarely com- 
bined in one man. In the pursuit of his heavenly calling he 
was more happy in the savage wilds of Koordistan than he 
would have been in the most favored portions of his native 
fares 

Bishop James Hannington, who fell on the northern shores 
of Lake Victoria Nyanza, Oct. 29th, 1885, cruelly shot to death 
by the people he came to bless, in times of doubt and difficulty 
was accustomed to encourage his companions with these 
favorite words: ‘‘Never be disappointed, only praise.’’ A letter 
written home shortly before his death carried the following 
significant message: ‘‘If this is the last chapter of earthly his- 
tory, then the next will be the first page of the heavenly—no 
blots and smudges, no incoherence, but sweet converse in the 
presence of the Lamb! In the midst of the storms around me 
I feel in capital spirits and can say, 


“““ Peace, perfect peace, the future all unknown ; 
Jesus we know, and He is on the throne.’”’ 


His death was tragic and heroic. As he was dragged 
violently over the ground by his legs he simply said, ‘‘Lord, I 
put myself in thy hands; I look alone to Thee.’”’ Believing 
that his last hour was come he sang ‘‘Safe in the arms of 
Jesus.’’ And when a few days after it was plain that the fatal 
moment had arrived, drawing himself up he calmly said to 
the savage warriors who hemmed him in with leveled 
spears, ‘‘Tell the king that I die for the Baganda, and I have 
bought the road to Uganda with my life.” 


108 7HE PASTORS MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


Other African heroes there are. Not least among them - 
stands Melville B. Cox, dying in 1833, the first foreign 
missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. ‘‘Do you not 
know,”’’ said a friend, ‘‘that you cannot live long in Africa?”’ 
Hé- replied, “TI do: not, expect,to; but, shopestoslve tower 
there; and it is the height of my ambition and the brightest 
vision of my life to lay my bones in the soil of Africa. If I 
ean only accomplish this I shall establish a connection between 
Africa and the Church at home that shall never be severed 
until Africa is redeemed.’’ After taking leave of his widowed 
mother he passed through Middletown, Conn., and said to a 
young man, a student of Wesleyan University there, ‘‘If I die 
in Africa you must come and write my epitaph.’’ ‘‘I will,” 
his friend replied ; ‘‘but what shall I write?’ ‘‘Write,’’ said 
Cox, ‘‘Let a thousand fall before Africa is given up.’’ 

Of the same spirit was Golaz, of the French Mission to 
Zenegambia, who died, together with his young wife, within a 
year after their arrival. His farewell words were, ‘‘Do not be 
discouraged if the first laborers fall in the field. Their graves 
will mark the way for their successors, who will march past 
them with great strides.”’ 

McCall of the Congo Mission, struck down in the midst of 
his bright promise of great usefulness, left as his last words 
these: “Lord, Lgave myself, body,;,mind, and soul to~lneess! 
consecrated my whole life and being to Thy service. And now 
if it please Thee to take myself instead of the work which I 
would do for Thee, what is that to me? Thy will be done!” 

Father Damien, a young Belgian priest, moved by love to 
Christ and by the sufferings of the wretched lepers of Molokai, 
in 1873 took up his abode on that island that he might give 
his life to alleviate their lot. In 1886 the dreadful malady 
seized him, and April 10, 1889, he passed away to his eternal 
reward. A year or two before the end, from the midst of his 
excruciating pain he wrote as follows: ‘‘In regard to the cure 
of this our incurable malady, I leave that. in the hands of 
Almighty God who knows far better than I do what is best 
for our sanctification during our short stay in this world. For 
myself, I am very happy and well pleased with my lot.’’ He 
said at another time, ‘‘I would not be cured if the price of my 
cure was that I must leave the island and give up my work.” 
It is no wonder that men of all creeds contributed to his work 
while he lived, and have joined heartily in his praises since he 
died. 

John Hunt, who did such glorious service on the Fiji 
Islands, then thoroughly cannibal, dying there Oct. 4th, 1848, 
at the early age of 36, sent up from his dying bed, besides the 
hallelujahs which were latest on his lips, most fervent suppli- 





HEART LHROBS- OF MISSIONARY HEROES: 109 


cations for the people he had come so far tosave. Amid copious 
tears and sobs that could not be suppressed he cried again and 
again, ‘‘Oh, let me pray once more for Fiji! Lord, for Christ’s 
sake, bless Fiji, save Fiji! Thou knowest my soul has loved 
Fiji; my heart has travailed in pain for Fiji. Save this 
people !’’ 

Entirely similiar was the soul of Samuel Dyer whose words 
were, “If I thought anything could prevent my dying for 
China, the thought would crush me. My only wish is to live 
for China, and to die pointing the Chinese to His redeeming 
blood.”’ 

Francis Xavier, greatest of the Roman. Catholic mission- 
aries (a band whose self-abnegation and sacrifice and love for 
souls has not been surpassed in human annals), gave up his 
life on Chinese soil, after having spent himself heroically for 
India and Japan. His continual cry, both in regard to the 
perils and labors to be endured, and the souls to be won for 
Jesus, was ‘‘Amplius,’’—More, Lord, more. 

Surely we need not add more, though it would be easy, to 
this list of those of whom the world was not worthy. ‘That we 
may be more worthy to stand in their company by and by.on 
high, must certainly be the prayer of every trie Christian 
heart. | 


XIX. The Noble Spirit of the Native Converts. 


Quite often, from people but little acquainted with mis- 
sions, is heard the inquiry, made in all seriousness, as to 
whether those who become Christians in heathen lands are 
really changed in heart. ‘They who know the facts in the 
case can hardly help smiling at such a question, or answering 
with some degree of indignation. While there are, of course, 
some:special weaknesses incident to the heritage from heathen 
ancestors, there are, on the other hand, special excellences 
growing out of the sacrifices they are compelled to make; and 
on the whole they will compare very favorably with the mem- 
bers of the churches in the home lands. We append a very 
few illustrations, out of the many that might be given, from 
the sayings and doings of these simple-minded, earnest-hearted 
children of different nations, showing that they do indeed most 
sincerely love the Lord. 

The Canadian Presbyterian records this significant testi- 
mony from a Japanese convert: ‘‘I can’t tell it in this foolish 
Japanese tongue; I don’t believe I could tell it in your tongue: 
but one poor heart can feel it all.”’ 

A widow in the Santal country was asked by the mission- 
ary, ‘‘Your house is the last in the village, don’t you feel 
lonely at night?’ ‘‘Howcan I feel lonely when He is with 
me?’’ was the ready and earnest reply. 

‘‘Why does God send you troubles ?”’ a native clergyman 
asked a Christian native woman in Tinnevelly. ‘‘To make 
me long for heaven,’’ was the answer. 

‘« Take the love of Jesus out of your heart,’’ cried a chief 
on the Niger to his slave, ‘‘ordie!’’ ‘‘I cannot do it,’’ said 
the Christian Negro, ‘‘for the Lord Jesus Christ came from 
heaven and put His love in my heart. He put a padlock on 
it, and has taken the key with Him up to heaven.”’ 

When a teacher was wanted by the missionary, Dr. 
Mason, of Burma, for the warlike Bghais, he asked his boat- 
man, Shapon, if he would go, and reminded him that, instead 
of the fifteen rupees a month which he now received, he could 
have only four rupees a month as a teacher. After praying 
over the matter, he came back, and Dr. Mason said: ‘‘ Well, 
Shapon, what is your decision? Can you go to the Bghais 
for four rupees a month ?’’? Shapon answered, ‘‘ No, teacher, 
I could not go for four rupees a month, but J can do it for 
Christ.’’ And for Christ’s sake he did go. 

110 





WNOBBIRSRIRIIZOLPSTHHANALIVE CONWERTS. * 111 


A recent missionary periodical makes the following state- 
ment: ‘‘In one of the stations of the China Inland Mission, 
an old woman had satisfied the missionaries, by her conduct 
and earnestness, that she was truly converted; but, for some 
unknown reason, she did not apply for baptism. At last one 
of the missionaries asked her why she delayed. ‘Then she 
said: ‘You know Jesus said to his disciples, Go ye into all 
the world and preach the gospel. I ama poor old woman, 
nearly seventy, and almost blind; I cannot go into all the 
world, and preach the gospel. I am willing to tell my hus- 
band, and my son, and his wife when he marries; I am willing 
to tell my neighbors; and I could, perhaps, go to one or two 
villages; but I cannot go unto all the world.’ She was as- 
sured that the Lord would accept her services according to her 
ability, and was joyfully baptized. Would it not be well for 
some more highly favored persons, who-call themselves Chris- 
tians, to apply to themselves the old Chinese woman’s test of 
discipleship ?”’ | . 

In 1873 an Indian living at Lansdowne, on the Winnepeg 
River, N. W. America, was admitted to baptism. While a 
heathen he had four wives; one he sold, and one of the others 
having offended him he had her nose cut off as a punishment. 
When he became an inquirer, he was told that before he could 
be baptized he would have to give up two of his three wives 
and marry only one. His affections seemed to decide in favor 
of one of the younge: ; but, previously to baptism, he, in the 
presence of a native clergyman, the Rev. H. Cochrane, ad- 
dressed his two youngest wives thus: . ‘‘I do not mean after 
baptism to drive you out of the house; you may remain as long 
as you like, but from henceforth you are free; you may marry 
whom you like, I shall not interfere. I injured and disfigured 
the other one in my passion, and J feel zt my duty to cave for 
that one. TI shall marry her.’ 

The Rev. T. S. Smith of Ceylon, at one of the meetings of 
the International Missionary Union, related the following in- 
cident: The youngest but one of the native pastors connected 
with the Jafna Mission was baptized when a boy of twelve, 
coming out of a heathen home, and coming five miles to be re- 
‘ceived into the church. He received a salary of eight dollars 
amonth. A large fraction of it came from two families who 
seemed to desire by their large contributions to purchase liberal 
consideration in the matter of church discipline. The pastor 
after trying in vain for many months to bring them to more 
orderly conduct made up his mind that something more decided 
must be resorted to. When they brought him their contribu- 
tions, he said: ‘‘ No, I cannot consent to receive this so long 
as you are walking disorderly.’’ In consequence of this step 


112 THE PASTORS MISSIONAR PW AN CAL 


he was soon brought into serious financial difficulty. After 
two or three weeks the supplies for the family were exhausted. 
The wife came saying, ‘‘ There is scarcely anything left, how 
can we endure it?’’ He said, ‘‘ We have been faithful, God 
will not forsake us.’’ Just then as they had eaten the last thing 
there came in, unsolicited, a large basket of gifts from his 
heathen mother who had long forsaken him and turned against 
him. Then that night came those very brothers for whose sake 
he had been suffering, bringing all the arrears, which had 
been untouched, melted into tears by his conduct, and saying, 
“Do receive this and we will walk henceforth in the right 
way.’ From that day to this they have done so, being among 
the most faithful there. 

In the Life of James Hannington is told the touching story 
of the martyrs of Uganda whose courage and devotion have in 
these last few years so thrilled the hearts of Christendom. 
Among the occurrences was this: Three Christian boys were 
tortured *by command of the cruel heathen king. ‘Their arms 
were cut off, and they were bound alive to the scaffolding 
under which a fire was made, and so they were slowly burned 
to death. As they hung in their protracted agony over the 
flames, Mujasi, the executioner, and his men taunted them 
and dared them to pray now to /sa JVasth if they thought he 
could do anything to help them. The spirit of the martyrs en- 
tered into these lads, and together they raised their voices and 
praised Jesus in the fire, singing, till their shrivelled tongues 
refused to frame the sound, the beautiful hymn beginning, 
Killa sikku tunstfu, the first stanza of which reads, in English, 
as follows: 


“Daily, daily sing to Jesus, 
Sing, my soul, his praises due ; 
All he does deserves our praises, 
And our deep devotion too.’’ 


One of the executioners, struck by the extraordinary forti- 
tude of the lads and their evident faith in another life, came 
and asked that he might be taught topray. Nor did the mar- 
tyrdom in the least daunt the other Christians. 

The Rev. Sylvester Whitehead, in an address at the anni- 
versary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, narrated the 
following: A man who had been keeper of the Confucian 
temple at Potlan, an ancient town on the Canton East river, 
having received a copy of the Scriptures from a colporteur of 
the London Missionary Society, believed, and was baptized by 
Dr. Legge. He at once gave up his employment, and occupied 
himself as a Scripture reader among his friends and acquaint- 
ances. He wasasort of moving conscience among the Chinese. 
He went about the streets of the city and into the interior with 








NOBLE SPIRIT OF THE NATIVE CONVERTS. 118 


boards upon his back bearing texts ofthe Holy Scripture ; and so 
abundantly were that inan’s labors honored that in about three 
vears a hundred persons were ready to receive Christian bap- 
tism. So mightily grew the word of God and preyailed that 
in a short time excitement began to appear, and then hostility, 
and then persecution broke out; Christians were driven from 
their villages, and their property plundered. This man was 
taken, and twice within forty-eight hours was had up before 
the mandarins to account for his conduct, and he was called 
upon to recant; this he sedulously refused to do; they, there- 
fore, tried what torture would do, and suspended him by the 
arms through the night; the next morning he was brought 
forth, pale, wan, feeble, almost ready to drop, for a second 
trial, still resolved to cleave to the Bible and to Christ, and he 
ventured to express the hope that his persecutors and judges 
might some day accept the new doctrine. This was too much 
for them. ‘They rushed upon him, like the judges of Stephen, 
‘“with one accord,’’ and killed him on the spot, and threw 
him into the river. Thus perished one of China’s first Protes- 
tant martyrs. 

The Rev. J. Vaughan, in his admirable volume, ‘‘ The 
Trident, the Crescent, and the Cross,’’ relates the following: 
Rammakal Chowke is a village eight miles from Calcutta, and 
a station of the London Missionary Society. One day three 
from this village visiting Calcutta heard the message of salva- 
tion. They became inquirers and were at length baptized. 
One of them, Ramjee, was the headman of the village, and 
owner of the temple of Shiva before which thousands of people 
paid their devotions. It was built by his ancestors, stood on 
his estate, and he had hitherto mainly supported the Brahmin 
priests who performed the services. But now, what should he 
do? He could no longer support the priest or permit the idol 
shrine to remain. But the bare mention of its destruction raised 
a fearful storm of indignation. He and his two Christian friends 
were openly told that dire vengeance awaited them if they 
lifted a hand against the venerable temple or its god. They 
betook themselves to prayer. At length Ramjee announced 
his intention, on a given morning, to destroy the shrine. Pop- 
ular fury knew no bounds. The heathen all around breathed 
out threatening and slaughter. The three friends and their 
wives met for united prayer on the eventful morning. A vast 
concourse of infuriated idolaters had assembled before the tem- 
ple. When the three prepared to sally forth on their hazard- 
ous undertaking, their wives seized their feet and with bitter 
tears implored them to forego their purpose. It was a time of 
fiery trial. They had every reason to apprehend fatal conse- 
quences, but with a courage more than human they calmly set 


114 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANCAD, 


forth on their errand. No sooner were they seen than a wrath- 
ful howl of execration greeted them. They fully expected to 
be seized before reaching the temple, but strange to say they 
passed untouched through the dense crowd; curses were 
poured upon them, but not a finger was raised to arrest them. 
Their weeping wives followed them with trembling apprehen- 
sion. Ramjee and his friends ascended the platform on which 
the temple stood. He then turned to the excited multitude, 
beckoned for silence, and with affectionate earnestness ap- 
pealed to the spectators to choose whom they would serve, the 
one true and living God or the senseless block which stood 
before them. He then rushed upon the idol, raised it from its 
pedestal, and, with a shout of ‘‘ Behold your god!’’ hurled it 
to the ground at their feet. The effect of this bold act was to 
electrify the astounded crowd. They were overwhelmed with 
horror, dismay and surprise; surprise, because as they looked 
on expecting to see the vengeance of Shiva wreaked on his im- 
pious desecrators they saw the noble confessors look down 
calmly upon them uninjured and unabashed. Ramlee availed 
himself of the crisis of consternation to make another appeal 
to the awe-stricken beholders. At this momenta timid cry 
was heard. It proceeded from the weeping group of women: 
‘‘ Jat, jat, Yisu Christ/’’ ‘That cry so seasonably raised, 
struck the key-note to which many a bewildered, astonished 
heart in the crowd responded, and presently one loud shout 
went up to heaven—'‘‘ Jaz, jaz, Yisu Christ /’’ (Victory to Jesus 
Christ!) Perhaps the first public shout of victory to Jesus in 
India proceeded on that day from the lips of Indian women. 
Rammakal Chowke may now be called a Christian village, and 
a Christian church stands on the spot formerly occupied by the 
Shiva temple. 

Major-General Haig, of India, tells this: Some three or 
four years ago I was at a little mission with which I was con- 
nected’ on the Godavery, some eight or nine hundred miles 
from Tinnevelly, and I was very anxious that a new station 
should be formed. I was aware that it wa: of no use writing 
home for men, and I thought to myself, ‘‘Why should not 
Tinnevelly Church send us men?’’ I wrote to Bishop Sargent, 
and he laid it before the native church council, for the churches 
there are 3elf-governed, and have their councils and committees. 
The council replied, ‘‘We will send you two men; and what 
is more, we will pay them.’’ They did so. One man died 
soon after he arrived; the other was left without a companion, 
in the midst of lonely jungles, eighty miles from the nearest 
mission station. He wrote to Tinnevelly to have some one 
sent to him, but the country in his neighborhood was very 
unhealthy, and at first no one would go. At last an old man 


a 





Mem stihl Or 1 iTEANATIVE CONVERTS. Lio 


sixty years of age said, “If nobody else will go, I will go.’’ 
And though this old man had never been outside of his own 
little village, he at once prepared to set out on a jonrney of 
nearly a month. He reached the headquarters, and then 
found that in his hurry he had left his little box of clothes 
behind him on the coast. They tried to persuade him to wait 
until his box came, but he said, ‘‘Let me go; give mea 
guide, I must go,’ and at once set off through the jungles to 
join his brother. Some months afterward, when a missionary 
went up that way, the people of the district said, ‘‘Who is that 
strange old man, who, whenever he comes, has only two words 
to speak to us in our language ?’’ The old man was a perfect 
stranger to the place, and, being a Tamil man, he did not 
know their language ; but he had learnt the words, ‘‘ Believe 
in Jesus,’’ and hesaid them on every possible occasion. He 
spent about a year there, but at last got very ill, and had to 
be sent back to his native place, which he had hardly reached 
ere he died. I say that old man laid down his life for Christ, 
and for the Kois. I often wish I could put up a tombstone, 
or some memorial to him, in that wild country, and just write 
upon it, for the people to read, these words: ‘‘ He laid down his 
life for us.”’ 

To us the name of ‘‘Hottentot’’ has by old habit come to 
signify the extreme of human degradation. But the J/7sszons- 
Blatt of the Moravian Brethren for February gives a narrative 
which presents them, as Christians, in a very different light. 
It seems that in 1810, a wealthy South African Boer, or farmer 
of Dutch descent, named Burgers, besides his extensive farms, 
bought at some distance from them, in a mountain basin, a 
pasturing ground of a number of hundred acres which became 
his favorite resort, while his farms were managed by his sons. 

After nearly thirty years of pastoral contentment in this 
grassy and well-watered valley, he found, in 1838, that he was 
likely soon to be left alone in it, as his slaves, whose hour of 
freedom dawned with the first of August in that year, had 
been so discouraged by him in their religious longings that 
they would be sure to leave him for some missionary station. 
He therefore took a great resolve. Surrendering his farms to 
his sons, he bequeathed his broad pasture-lands, or rather the 
usufruct of them, to six Hottentot slaves, on condition that 
they should care for him till his death. When the last of 
the six should be dead, the lands were to be divided among 
their children. They immediately established at Burgers- 
kloof a flourishing Moravian station named Goedvorwacht. But 
it was surrounded by wealthy Boers, worshipers of Mammon 
and enemies of Christ. These, conscious how plethoric their 
purses were and how lean those of the missionaries, waited 


116 THE PASTOR S MISSIONARY MANGAL, 


grimly year after year, till the last of the six Hottentots, who 
had been so suddenly raised from the depths into the rank of 
landed proprietors, should have passed away, nothing doubt- 
ing but that with their long purses they could then buy up 
Burgerskloof from all competitors, and scatter all godliness to 
the winds. Year after year passed, and one after another of 
the six dropped away, until the whole continuance of the 
station, as it appeared, hung on the life of one frail old Hot- 
tentot woman, fitly named Christiana. The hearts of the mis- 
sionaries grew heavy. But for many years ‘‘many were en- 
gaged in building up an invisible wall of prayer around Bur- 
gerskloof.’’ At last, December 28, 1888, old Christiana fell 
asleep, 92 years old. There were now thirteen heirs, all poor 
Hottentots, some a good deal in debt, to whom the Boers 
around stood ready to pay twice, thrice, nay five times as 
much for the rich pasture land, with its plentiful springs, as 
the mission had any hope of raising. And the courts decided 
that if oze of the thirteen insisted on it, the whole must be put 
up to auction, in which case the Boers were sure of the result. 
It must be remembered that the Moravians claim no authority 
over the property of their members. They can advise but 
they cannot control, either civilly or ecclesiastically. Not one 
of the thirteen, however, could be moved to sell the land to 
any one except the mission, for the moderate sum of £750, 
which it could afford to give. 

And thus Goedvorwacht, through Christ’s providence and 
His humble people’s faithfulness, fulfilled its name of Well- 
guarded, and Mammon retired discomfited. In the various 
transactions connected with the final settlement, involving the 
fate of two stations, the Brethren remark that the Hottentots 
have displayed a dignity, a self-restraint, a submission to 
Providence, a preference of spiritual to temporal interests, 
which places them not among the lowest but among the high- 
est of their converts. 


> 


XX. Nuggets and Arrow Points. 


“THE reason many people have no interest in missions is because 
they invest no principal.” 


‘‘Had the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem till they had converted their 
countrymen, Christianity would have been strangléd at its birth.”’ 


“Keep before the minds of the children a kingdom of God co-exten- 
sive with all the earth.’’—/. S. Storrs. 


“T feel age creeping upon me. I know that I must soon die. I hope 
it is not wrong to say it, but I cannot bear to leave this world with all the 
suffering in it.”’—arl of Shaftesbury. 


‘The church is a gold coin of divine minting. One side shows the 
likeness of its Lord, the other the map of the world. Both devices are 
so indelibly stamped into the coin that to mar either means loss, to efface 
either destroys the coin.’’—Z. A. Lawrence. 


‘‘Nothing has contributed more to ensure scanty contributions than 
the mistaken policy of making the missionary cause a religious charity 
rather than a church enterprise; the appeal has been made to the pity of 
the public rather than to the conscience of the church; it has been made 
a beggar, and has received a beggar’s portion.’’—/. M7. Thoburn. 


““Know, and you will feel. Know, and you will pray. Know, and 
you will help. You will be ashamed of the sluggishness, of the isolation, 
of the selfishness, which has made you think only of your own people 
and your father’s house.’’—C. J. Vaughan. 


“T understand that they spend here, in this parish, £600 a 
year on their choir, and £30 a year on foreign missions, which is a piece 
of refined selfishness I cannot describe.’’—Adward Roper. 


“In the whole compass of human benevolence there is nothing so 
grand, so noble, so Christian, so truly God-like, as the work of evangel- 
izing the heathen.”— Wm. Swan. 


‘“How slowly, how languidly missionary efforts advance, as compared 
with what we spend upon the luxuries and indulgences by which we are 
surrounded.”—D. Wilson. 


‘“‘A world of sinning and suffering men, each one of them my own 
brother, calls on me for work, work, work.’’—Wm. Arthur. 


“The interest which a truly Christian people take in missions is 
equal to their correct knowledge of them.”—/. Anderson. 


‘Tf Christian missions had done nothing more than to build up such 
a character as that of Adoniram Judson, they would be worth all they 
cost.’’— Theodore Parker. 
LT 


118 THE PASTOR'S MISSIQGNARY AVANGCAL, 


“The world’s strongholds lie before us like Jericho with its prostrate 
walls, and we have only to march on straight forward and take posses- 
sion.’—A. 7. Pierson. 


‘““A missionary spirit! What is this but a Christ spirit—the pure 
flame of His love to souls burning brightly enough in our hearts to make 
us willing first, then longing, to go anywhere, and to suffer any priva- 
tions, in order to seek and find the lost in the distant mountains and 
trackless deserts of the whole earth.’’—/rs. Banntster. 


“On the clock of history the hour for missions has sounded. The 
Church, the Family and the Individual who do not place the duty of con- 
quering new kingdoms‘to the Lord in the first line of their obligations. 
abdicate their position.” —A. WV. Cast. 


‘‘What is the outlook ? It is good. There’s light ahead ; there’s help 
in God ; there’s wealth in Jesus; there’s power in prayer.’’—David 
Preston. 


‘““Two out of every three persons who walk this earth have never 
heard of the Gospel of Christ, or seen a copy of the Bible; and of this. 
more favored third, two-thirds are in the almost pagan darkness of an 
apostate church. And yet many of Christ’s disciples think they are called 
to do little or nothing for Christian missions.’’—. Montague. 


“If any man be engaged at home in any serious work for the cause: 
of Christ, if to the utmost of his powers, unselfishly, at all costs, he is try- 
ing to make his life a contribution to God’s truth at home, then I will 
admit that his objection to foreign missions, though narrow and mis- 
taken, is at least sincere. But if he be only living in selfish ease, doing 
nothing real to make the world better, then for him to talk of the folly of 
trying to convert the heathen because we have heathens at our doors isa 
base and boundless hypocrisy.”,—Archdeacon Farrar. 


“There is but one lake on the surface of the globe from which there 
is no outlet, and that is the Dead Sea, which receives much but gives 
nothing. Such a lake is a perfect illustration of a church, all whose 
efforts terminate upon itself. Around it there will be desolation and in 
it there will be no life.’—Wm. MW. Taylor. 


‘““The romance of missions is a home dream; but the blessedness of 
the missionary life is a reality gloriously verified in the experience of 
every one baptized for the work. Oh, it is glorious work! I know no 
work like it—so real, so unselfish, so apostolic, so Christ-like. I know 
no work that brings Christ so near to the soul, that throws a man back 
so completely upon God, and that makes the grand old Gospel appear so 
real, so precious, so divine.”’—Grifith John. 


‘We believe we may confidently assert that among the hundreds of 
men and women engaged in missionary labor who were gathered in the 
Conference, there were none who regretted that they had given themselves 
to this cause, or who believed that there was any nobler work to which 
they could have consecrated their lives,’”’— Secretaries, Decennial Mis- 
stonary Conference, Calcutta. 


NUGGETS AND ARROW POINTS. 119 


‘‘The more we connect the missionary cause with the person of Jesus 
‘Christ, rather than with effort and organization, the more divine will be’ 
the inspiration for each detail of the work. We belong to Christ! Then 
His cause is our cause, His work ours, His triumph ours. We shall be so 
wrapped up in His honor that we shall feel enriched when He is glorified, 
and His kingdom is enlarged, and His soul satished in the salvation of 
sinners.’’—J/1ss A. Bratthwatte. y 


‘Between the solemn urgency of the last great command of the risen 
Saviour to His disciples to preach the gospel to every creature, and the 
practice of many who call Him Lord, there is a discrepancy which may 
well provoke thought. With Him it was the one great work above all 
others, and that its difficulties might not dismay those to whom it was 
committed, He assured them of His power, and for their comfort 
promised His own presence. Did He make too much of the work, or do 
His people make too little? One of the two it must be ; which is it ?’’— 
B. Broomhall. 


“The church at home must learn to give up without a murmur to 
foreign service, not her meanest but her mightiest. She must never 
speak of any man as too learned, or too eloquent, or too useful, or (in 
any-sense) too good to be sent abroad. On the contrary she must im- 
press early upon the hearts of her children, of those who are to be here- 
after her chiefest and her foremost ones, the dignity, the honor, the 
sanctity of that most responsible trust, of that indeed highest prefer- 
ment.’’—C. /. Vaughan. 


‘“The aim of missions is not simply the conversion of souls, the 
evangelization of the world, or witness-bearing for Christ. The distinct, 
ultimate aim is to plant in every land a self-supporting, self-governing, 
self-propagating church. Every land is to be won for Christ by the na- 
tive church. The work of missions is to found that church, develop the 
native ministry, establish all Christian institutions, and then say, with 
John the Baptist, ‘Thou must increase, but I must decrease.’ The scope 
of missions extends to all countries where no living church already occu- 
pies the ground.” —Z. A. Lawrence. 


‘Christ is fhe motive to missions, as to all Christian work. As 
Elisha on the dead child, so he lays himself upon the dead body of his 
church, kindles it to life, and impels it to world-wide activity, constrain- 
ing it alike by his love, command, and energy. In such contact with 
Christ lies the whole secret and power of missions.’’—/#. A. Lawrence. 


“In the foremost rank of powers destined to change the face of the 
world stands Christian Missions.’’—/. MJackenzte. 


“The Church has two unused powers, the power of consecrated 
money, and the power of covenant prayer.’’—A. 7. Pierson. 


““The claims of this work are supreme, none can touch it to help it 
without personal blessing, none may neglect it without serious spiritual 
loss.” 


‘‘In making a missionary. address be short, spirited, and spiritual.’?— 
Geo. W. Wood. 


“Attend to the presence of God, that will dignify a small congrega- 
tion, and annihilate a large one.’’— Richard Cectl. 


120 THE PASTOR'S MISSIONARY MANUAL. 


‘‘Itis inconceivable that a true disciple can be brought face to face 
with the facts both of man’s extremity and the church’s opportunity, 
without an immediate and enthusiastic response to man’s wail and to 
God’s will.” —A. 7: Pierson. 


‘“‘T have had many people resort to me for confession. The confes- 
sion of every sin that I have known or heard of, and of sins so foul that I 
never dreamed of them, has been poured into my ear, but no one person 
has ever confessed to me the sin of covetousness.’’——Xavzer. 


w 


‘‘The sublimest and the most effective words known to human his- 
tory are those in which these four colossal ad/s were proclaimed as the 
foundation of the kingdom of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost,-in the Christian Church. All power ; all nations ; all commands ; 
alltimes. These four alls of Christ, from His supreme commission 
to His disciples, are the four corner-stones of the Church of Christ.’’— 
Joseph Cook. 


‘‘In every age and land the greatest stimulus to labor and sacrifice 
in the cause of evangelism is loving loyalty to Christ, a sensitive concern 
for His honor, enthusiasm for the coming of His Kingdom, and a deter- 
mination that His will shall be done on earth, even as it is done in 
heaven.’’—/ames Gall. 


“Tf you have a living faith in a living Jesus, if you know and feel 
that in this work you are doing, you are working to lift the world, not so 
much from sin as for Christ and to Christ and with Christ; if you realize 
in your heart of hearts the promise whose music is louder than the storm 
at its wildest—‘ Lo, I am with you alway ’—then you can do everything ; 
you can confront an embattled world, you can dare, if need be, the fiercest 
demons ofthe pit and of its flame.’’—Morley Punshon. 


‘* Ah, if in this age of sentiment, of little sense of God, of loosened 
grip of conscience and of obligation, the Lord’s professed people could 
only be got face to face with Him, as Moses when the bush flamed with 
the ineffable presence of Jehovah! or as Isaiah when the splendors of the 
eternal throne, with its attendant seraphim, flashed before him! And if 
while they were conscious of the Oye shadowing of God, and of the al- 
legiance they owe to him there could be stamped on their souls in letters 
of fire, that old and almost forgotten word OBEDIENCE, a revival of mis- 
sionary zeal would be sure to follow.” —Z. P. Goodwin. 


. “We have no fires of martyrdom now to test our fidelity to Jesus 
Christ ; but we are not left without a test. God is testing us all contin- 
ually ; testing the measure of our faith, of our love, of our devotedness to 
his Son, by the presence of eight hundred millions of heathen in the 
world. It is a tremendous test! Gifts that cost us no personal self- 
denial are no proofs of devotedness. Consecration to Jesus in a world 
tenanted by eight hundred millions of heathen means constant self-denial 
and self-sacrifice, means unwearied well-doing even unto death.’’—J/7s. 
Gratian Guinness. 


‘‘The people of God waste their strength and wealth on unprofitable 
pleasures, and, with hundreds of millions of dollars under their control, 
permit churches and missions to starve. If Christians spent every cent 
of wages, salary and income on themselves, and gave to missions only 


NUGGETS AND ARROW POINTS. 12] 


one cent on a dollar of their real and personal property, their contribution 
would be $87,284,000 instead of $5,500,000. The luxury, extravagance 
and unfaithfulness ot God’s people must be removed or our nation is 
doomed.’’—Rev. Dr. Barrows. 


‘“The great glaring denial of faith and duty which stands out before 
the world to-day so clearly that it cannot be concealed is the refusal of 
those who bear the name of Christ to execute the great commission which 
their Master has given them. Christianity isthus made to testify against 
herself. A thousand Ingersollsin every country under the sun would not 
do so much to create disbelief of the truth among men, as this spectacle 
of a church inheriting promises which she seems unable to believe, and 
receiving commandments which she seems unwilling to execute.’—/. JZ. 
Thoburn., : 

‘“To sneer at missionaries—a thing so cheap and so easy to do — has 
always been the fashion of libertines and cynics and worldlings. So far 
from having failed, there is no work of God which has recelved so abso- 
lute, so unprecedented a blessing. To talk of missionaries as a failure is 
to talk at once like an ignorant and like a faithless man.’’—Archdeacon 
Farrar. 


‘The success of the Terra del Fuegan mission is most wonderful, 
and charms me, as I always prophesied failure. Had it not occurred it 
would have been to me incredible. I should certainly have predicted 
that not all the missionaries in the world could have done so much. The 
lesson of the missiouary is the enchanter’s wand.’’—Szr Charles Darwin. 


“‘T went to the East with no enthusiasm as to missionary enterprise. 
I came back with the fixed conviction that it is, under Providence, the 
great agent of civilization ; and I feel it my duty to add that everywhere 
in Asia and Africa, among the Kaffirs in Natal, on the continent of India, 
among the forests of Ceylon, and over the vast expanse of China, the tes- 
timony to the success and zeal of our countrymen as missionaries of truth 
is earnest and concurrent. I heard it everywhere and from high autuor- 
ity.’—Wr. Reed, Treaty Commuisstoner of the U.S. 


‘‘Before I went to the far East I was strongly prejudiced against the 
missionary enterprise and against foreign missionaries ; but after a careful 
examination of their work, I became convinced of its immense value.’’— 
The Hon. David B. Sickles. 


‘‘T believe, notwithstanding all that the English people have done to 
benefit India, the missionaries have done more than all other agencies 
combined.”—Lord John Lawrence, Viceroy of India. 


‘‘Whatever you may be told to the contrary, I assure you that the 
teaching of Christianity among the millions of civilized, industrious Hin- 
doos and Mohammedans in India is effecting changes, moral, social, and 
political, which for extent and rapidity of effect are far more extraordi- 
nary than anything you or your fathers have witnessed in modern 
Europe.’’— Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay. 


‘“‘T have during my life in India been the local Governor of 105,000, - 
000 of people in different provinces. Thousands of Europeans have 
served under me, and I ought to know something of the value and the 
character of men. I have also been acquainted with the Missionary 


122 THE PASTOR SVMISSIONARY MANGAL, 


Stations throughout the length and breadth of the country. I believe 
that a more talented, zealous, and able body of men than the missionaries 
does not exist in India. Ina country abounding in talent and learning 
they fully hold theirown. Those who undervalue missions will belong 
to one of two categories, either persons who do not care for religion, or 
persons who are not experienced in the interior of India.’’—Szr Richard 
Temple, Governor of Bombay. 


‘‘T know of no class of Englishmen who have done so much to ren- 
der the name of England, apart from the power of England, respected in 
India as the missionaries. I know of no class of Englishmen who have 
done so much to make the better side of the English character under- 
stood. I knowof no class who have done so much to awaken the Indian 
intellect, and at the same time to lessen the dangers of the transition 
from the old state of things tothe new. The missionaries have had their 
reward. Noclass of Englishmen receive so much unbought kindness 
from the Indian people while they live ; no individual Englishmen are so 
honestly regretted when they die.”’—Szr William Flunter. 











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